We have a situation. We have found ourselves in a very difficult point in our history and the question is whether we, as a people, can make the change this country so desperately needs.
As the issues on corruption and transparency continue to grow, it is obvious that the country is facing significant instability. Why do I say this? In the tourism industry alone, the latest return on tourist investment (ROTI) is showing a real cause for concern. Compared to Vietnam’s rating of 1.94, Thailand 1.50, Malaysia 1.49, Singapore 1.37 and Indonesia 1.08, the Philippines’ sad 0.57 is a rather painful result and it has affected our economy, considering that in 2019, the Philippines had a record 8.2 million tourist arrivals. Today is certainly not looking like It’s More Fun in the Philippines, as the Department of Tourism under this administration has missed its target for 2024 of having 7.7 million tourists visit the country.
Then we have the issue of the stock market, which has lost about P1.7 trillion in value over the past three weeks based on reports, as flood control controversies continue to mount and fear over corruption marking the largest loss in absolute value since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. While I am certain that I have not cited the many other issues the country is facing today, fact is, we have a serious breakdown in trust.
Looking back in history, in the 1980s we had a debt crisis that fueled inflation during the Marcos administration and then the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and a global financial crisis in 2008. We then experienced the pandemic crash in 2020 due to fear and uncertainty, which was severely devastating for the markets and to date, we have been seeing how this current crisis is affecting investor confidence and market credibility due to the misuse of funds and trust over flood control projects.
Whether we like it or not, all this and more is brought about by the deepening political crisis our country is facing today and we need to work on a plan for stability in our country that is more urgent than ever before. Due to the worsening political upheaval in the past few months, it is becoming increasingly apparent that our economic woes are compounding.
If one will recall, just last year, France called for a snap parliamentary election in the hope of gaining a clear majority, which sadly resulted in a divided parliament, with opposing factions unwilling to work together. How to proceed in spite of this now depends on French President Macron, who they say should be asking himself how far he can take the political pretense, considering that most recently, the prime minister quit after 26 days. While Macron says he will not step down before his term ends, some parties in France are clamoring for early elections, while others are pushing for him to go.
Although this is the French ‘situation,’ the Philippines has problems of its own but the effects of political crisis are the same. If one will recall, in 2009, the Greek economy crashed and Greece went into a severe recession and sadly, their financial crisis caused political unrest and the government was forced to call for an early election and lost power.
But looking at the bigger picture, studies have shown that, in countries that have high trust levels, economic crisis is less likely to cause political unrest; however, in countries where people feel less trusting of others, a failing economy is said to be more likely to result in a ruling party being voted out of power. Again, we have a situation and the situation involves trust. Considering that high trust countries did not vote governments out of office even after a recession shows how much they can bounce back from it and much faster than the ones that voted for a change in the ruling party. High trust countries also have more media freedom, higher incomes and a much stronger democracy that plays a big role in ‘bouncing back’ after crisis.
At the end of the day, our problems are all about trust. We have leaders who have failed us and caused us to lose our faith in their leadership yet, at the same time, we are more conscious than ever about trust. This is the main thing that we need to build together, as a political crisis that continues to stress us will bring us deeper into the pit of despair, making it difficult to bounce back and recover. As the saying goes, ‘there is nowhere to go but up’ and we Filipinos need to choose this path and rebuild our country on trust.
Our current political situation is causing so much unrest and suffering, leaving our people afflicted by depression and anxiety. We need to recover and that time is now. More importantly, we need to take action by building back our trust and confidence in our leaders so that they can fully lead us out of crisis. This can only happen if and only if we have the right leaders to lead our nation.