There are some people today such as Filipino COMMUNISTS and other critics who are slamming President Rodrigo R. Duterte for cracking down on the tambays. Tambay is a Filipino word that means unemployed people who are doing nothing but loiter on the streets and do nonsense. In short, the person is neither employed for someone nor self-employed in any business (big or small). These people do nothing but just be there - this means a bystander or someone who is just there to be there. What's causing all this? Well, as it should be stressed - it's the problem of economic protectionism that has caused tambays to be there.
Why am I blaming economic protectionism for the increasing problem of tambays? We must understand first the supply-demand gap. How many Filipino businessmen are there (regardless of ethnicity such as Filipino-Chinese or Filipino-Spanish) vs. the number of Filipinos looking for jobs? The unemployment rate itself is related to the huge supply vs. demand gap of having too few Filipino-owned businesses (even big time Filipino businessmen can't cover that one) and too many citizens of the Philippines who are out there looking for jobs.
The whole lousy economic protectionist idiocy has restricted foreign investors to merely 40% rather than the adjustable 50% and above ownership package used by developed countries. Foreign investors registered in any country themselves bring in jobs and more taxable income to collect from the government. However, the current protectionist policy of the 1987 Constitution has caused more and more Filipinos to fly around the world looking for jobs which is by no means a form of conquest. One recent question I raised about that is, "Did Filipinos take over Kuwait?" Instead, OFWs in Kuwait are treated like slaves. They didn't even infiltrate the Kuwait government and I don't see a Filipino flag flying over the state of Kuwait that says, "The Philippines has now conquered Kuwait." Neither has any country with Overseas Filipino Workers or OFWs become a new extension of the ideal and imaginary Filipino Empire because no country with OFWs has become a colony of the Philippines.
We can start with the problem of joblessness and OFW families. I'm not saying all OFWs are bad. Some of them have left their homes without a choice and may not be feeding parasites and that they are OFWs with a plan. Sadly, we've got OFWs who are actually feeding parasites in the form of friends (fiends) and relathieves (relatives + thieves) where the OFW is the sacrificial lamb, he or she is the "new hero" or "new heroine" who brings home the dollars while everyone does nothing. It has helped create the mentality of why should they work if they have that OFW who brings home the foreign currency or the large digit salary even if these countries (like Japan and South Korea) have currencies lower than the Philippine peso. If there's someone who's bringing in the money (and sadly, OFWs have very little knowledge of what's going on in their families and relatives) then why work? Certain members of OFW families will just become tambays, they would just go there in the streets and have fun while waiting for the money to come in or when it's break time. They use the OFW remittances that's meant for them for their wanton living - which also explains why so many OFW families tend to remain poor.
How can the problem of tambays be lessened in the area of unemployment? It's not just a crackdown on them or arresting tambays who have violated the laws (ex. those who work as drug pushers for big-time drug syndicates). One thing we need to learn from developed countries like Japan and Singapore with lower crime rates and safer streets is not just because they have strict discipline but also good economic policies. Sure, these countries have not eradicated poverty to zero percent but they have much less of that problem than in countries like the Philippines. It's also their good economic policies like having reasonable tax rates (which is why TRAIN law is now used) and their habit of not being hostile towards foreign investors. They put reasonable restrictions with foreign investors by allowing them to have 50% to 100% ownership in terms of registration (even if said countries don't sell land to foreigners for valid reasons) which in turn creates more job availability for its citizens and more revenues for the government.
May I also suggest that aside from getting rid of unreasonable Foreign Direct Investment restrictions that it's also more than time to abolish the 4Ps program. I don't care what some crazy old man says about 4Ps as not being mendicancy but that it's an "investment" because it's just downright wrong. The 4Ps program is making people lazy because if people will just wait for their allowances then work becomes irrelevant. No, people who are given 4Ps don't necessarily buy it on vegetables, fish and rice - they may even use the 4Ps for gambling, karaoke and getting drunk which makes the claim that for every PHP 3,000.00 given for every family that means there's a PHP 9,000.00 peso return for government as a result. That claim is bogus because 4Ps is just recycling government money. Besides, how can 4Ps encourage foreign investors to employ Filipinos if people are just waiting for their allowances to waste on nonsense?
If you want a better Philippines then it's time to be serious on how to solve the tambay problem. It's just about time that decent-minded Filipinos have had enough of the tambay problem. It's time to think do you want a Philippines where you have the freedom to be a tambay yet the consequence is safety is compromised or do you want having no freedom to be a tambay yet the result is that people can freely move around with less worry of getting nabbed? It's more than time to think about that!
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