100 men and a mango

Title

100 men and a mango

Language

English

Year

1952

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

MAY, 1952 asked. "I'm on my way to Mindanao," he answered, "I think it's my duty to do something for my country." May their blessed tribe increase! A TIP FOR OUR FARMERS WHO and ECA officials it seems are indulging in too much verbosity. Their official reports carry an impressive array of figures presumably calculoled to convert any desert into a "land flowing with milk and honey." Perhaps it has worked out in certain isolated instances. But with all respect for the good that the WHO and ECA are doing the solution that could bring underdeveloped areas to the peak of production is startingly simple. In an article we have read, World Hunger and One Nun (see page 34 of this issue) a strip of barren land in China was brought up to its full production capacity by a group of enterprising convent nuns. Their only capital — common sense ond industry. ’ The story of these nuns should make our would-be economics and farmers who harp too much on their lock of capital blush with shame. In this simple story is the proof that a land no matter how poor its soil quality can be made amazingly productive with only those two requisites we have mentioned as capital—common sense and industry. And our soil in the Philippines is rich! 100 MEN AND A MANGO In the "Sunday Timas" for April 13, we read a story about the low per capita incom|p in the Philippines. Here, the statistics tell us, the overage annual wage is only P232.74, one of the lowest in the world. Every other country of which there is available records, with one single exception, have higher ■ wcges. Some countries are much higher, with the United States leading with a per capita income of P3,151.18. Surely this is lamentable. We agree that higher wages are needed and are most desirable. However, such situations ore not remedied by just talking about them or by waving a magic wand. The "Sunday Times" article foils to mention onother very important point, namely, that the per capita wealth in the Philippines is also very low. Compared to the United States, for example, the wealth of the average Filipino is only one-fifteenth of the average Americon. In other words, our per capita income has almost exactly the same proportion to our per capita wealth as the per capita income of the United States has to its per capita wealth. THE CROSS What then is the solution? It is not merely to talk nor to criticixe nor to wave magic wands nor to damn the capitalists. The fact remains that we have very little wealth in the Philippines. We musl increase our wealth. And we con do that only by increasing the productivity of our country which is potentially rich but sadiy underdeveloped and poorly organized. In other words, let us talk less and work more. Then we can salve our big problems. If you have only five mangos, you can't give one mango each to hundred men. The solution, obviously, is to produce 100 mangos. But, someone may ask, “How can we increase productivity?" Here are some specific suggestions: ) Encourage our farmers to have Many of our farmers work only auxiliary crops and home industhree or four months a year in their hands. Nearly all of them hove at least small pieces of land in which they could grow auxiliary crops, raise chickens and pigs, etc. Help them to do so. 2) Increase the number of agricultural and vocational schools. By far, the greater part of our potential wealth today and for decades to come lies in our agriculture. If while they are young, boys and girls acquire interest and the know-how, then fewer of them will rush after whitecollar jobs. 3) Encourage ond use all means, short of dictatorship, to lessen the percentage of young people who are crowding our cities to attain courses that for them will be useless, that will provide them with a diploma which, as vte have said before, is nothing better than a certificate of unemployment. 4) Urge our legislators to improve credit facilities and producers' and marketing cooperatives to help our farmers to produce. With these and other means our national productivity cap increase tremendously. Thus, we will have greater distribution of wealth; and thus, our average individual annual income will also increase. MORE ON DIPLOMA MILLS At the commencement exercises of the FEATI Tech, high school department recently. Speaker Pro-tempore Domingo Veloso cited the following statistics: For the lost seven years we have graduated 54,353 elementary school teachers compared to 6 associates in industrial technology; 6,532 associates in arts to 7 agricultural teachers; 4,000 pre-medic and pre-law graduates to 3 in social administration; 8,070 graduates in commerce, 2,870

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