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Arroyo�s barefaced lies
Already a liar and a toady, Arroyo has likewise done an Imelda Marcos. She has strained to prettify the Philippine economy�s pathetic situation through repeated declarations these past few days that the people are not at all poor. One wonders what other insults Gloria Arroyo will be throwing at the Filipino people who are hungrier and more wretched than ever.
�Will you buy a cellcard before you buy rice?� Arroyo rhetorically asks. Tauntingly, she cites news reports stating that beer, gin and pre-paid cellular phone card consumption grew in the Philippines in 2004. The reports were based on growing sales of San Miguel, Smart and Globe and a separate survey conducted by AC Nielsen about consumption patterns in the country. What a shame for someone who prides herself in being an �economist� to misrepresent a list of the most marketable products in a particular period as an index of the real conditions of the majority of the people.
�It�s not that bad after all,� was what Arroyo said about widespread unemployment in the Philippines after �economists� like her changed the basic definition of joblessness. Through statistical sleight of hand, those not looking for work (which includes millions of stay-at-home women) were stricken off the list of the unemployed, reducing the number of jobless people by 1.2 million in an instant!
Arroyo moreover commissioned the Social Weather Station this month to make it appear in a survey that the incidence of hunger among Filipinos has gone down. To the millions of families who try to get by with a pack of instant noodles every mealtime, it remains a mystery how in the world they came to that conclusion.
Arroyo has the nerve to claim that the Filipino people are �extravagant� and that �they are not poor after all� even as prices of food, services and petroleum products have gone on an upward spiral under her regime�and workers and peasants have been forced to get by with crumbs from the table of potbellied bureaucrat thieves and exploiters.
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 21 January 2005
English Edition
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Ang Bayan is the official news organ of the Communist Party of the Philippines issued by the CPP Central Committee. It provides news about the work of the Party as well as its analysis of and standpoint on current issues.
AB comes out fortnightly. It is published originally in Pilipino and translated into Bisaya, Ilokano, Waray, Hiligaynon and English.
Acrobat PDF files of AB are available online for downloading and offline reading printing. If you wish to receive copies of AB via email, click here. |
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