More jobs needed
WITH the unsolved squatting problem in Metropolitan Manila and other urban centers, there’s now a need to call on foreign and local businessmen to invest in the countryside.
Everybody agrees that the lack of employment opportunities has been forcing rural dwellers to look for greener pastures in highly-urbanized cities across the country.
Certainly, the “unchecked migration” from the countryside, where majority of the poorest of the poor live, continues to worry concerned government offices and agencies.
Without doubt, this is lamentable since the government has been spending billions of pesos in taxpayers’ hard-earned money just to relocate squatters or informal settlers.
But many relocated slum dwellers are forced to return to Metropolitan Manila and other urban centers throughout the Philippines, according to government authorities.
Aside from lack of high-paying jobs in the provinces, farmers, fishermen and laborers find it impossible to send their children to college if they remain in the countryside.
“Dahil sa pataas ng pataas na production costs, kulang pang pambayad sa utang ang kinikita ng mga magsasaka pagkatapos ng ani,” lamented a son of a vegetable farmer.
“Hindi lang yan. Kapag binili ng mga negosyante ang produkto ng mga magsasaka ay sobrang baba ang presyo. Kadalasan ay luging-lugi ang mga magsasaka,” he added.
What’s needed is for the government and the incoming administration to hasten the socio-economic development of rural communities, where there’s extreme poverty.
The government ought to stop urban migration, but we have to create quality jobs in the countryside.
