Giving priority to our economic survival

THE administration should give priority to the basic needs of our people.

It is a public knowledge that every state needs funds for it to attend to the specific areas, such as infrastructure, agriculture, health and possibly education. The state must pay attention to the goals of independence to realize the substance of sovereignty.

One must note that independence without sovereignty would have no meaning much that sovereignty without development and progress is without substance.

The situation in the Philippines, however, remains pathetic and hopeless.

It failed to give priority to our endeavor to achieve the needs of independence such as the building of infrastructure, agricultural development, welfare for our labor and health to our people.

For instance, we pursue the goals in our infrastructure with a definite objective to attain progress and development.

It is often used as our gauge on how far we achieved the goals of our people as a state.

It was this particular achievement why former President Marcos was reelected.

Our people equated his building of infrastructures as his tangible achievements for progress.

The second priority the old Marcos government achieved was to guaranty on whether people will have something to eat, and could afford to buy them at affordable prices.

Marcos knew that food was equivalent to survival, and man’s best anchor to that was to give meaning to survival.

Every man must not only be given his right to eat but a means to afford him respect and dignity.

The old man’s program took a multifaceted approach to break the century-old problem of food shortage.

Unknown to many, Marcos Sr. is the only president who issued numerous decrees in favor of the working class to truly make him as the representative of the workers

First, he took the more radical approach of land reform by issuing P.D. 27 limiting the landholdings; urging the formation of farmers’ cooperatives; granting and liberalizing loans to land-reform beneficiaries; building of fertilizer plant and selling them at subsidized price; and carrying out massive irrigation in all agricultural lands.

Unfortunately, the rascals in the past administration opted to privatize the fertilizer plant only to close it later to the delight of the rich rice farmers.

Marcos knew what it meant to have food security.

The present breed of leaders does not see the difference and value of our priority as a state.

We abandoned our economy in favor of defense and security without knowing how will it cost us to invest.

We can never expect a return to our investment nor would be able to decipher what our allies intend us to do in their decision to expand their bases.

We exactly did the opposite to what the opposition once called as the “American lapdog in Asia.”

Then President Marcos did not only work to dismantle the US bases but limited their jurisdiction. He realized the US would never surrender jurisdiction over its servicemen to a foreign power. In lieu, the government was only able to obtain increased military assistance as substitute for jurisdiction over the bases including the limitation on the number of bases

NEW YORK—The violins reverberate in the ribcage, while cello and bass are felt a little further down, with horns in the shoulders and, more often than not, soloists in the wrists.

That’s one way audio expert Patrick Hanlon programs haptic suits, designed to enable concertgoers who are deaf or hard of hearing to experience orchestral music, as initiatives to improve inclusivity at live music performances break new ground.

At a recent classical concert at Manhattan’s Lincoln Center, audience members had the chance to try on the wireless vests, featuring 24 points of vibration translating the music onstage.

“It engages the body,” Hanlon told AFP prior to the show, giving attendees a “3D-surround experience through vibrations.”

Hanlon is a co-founder of Music: Not Impossible, an arm of Not Impossible Labs, which employs tech to try to alleviate social barriers, including those around disability.