Has the financial crisis hit Romblon?

“Obvious ba?”

This was the answer of my pare, Mike Faderogao, administrative officer of the Concepcion National High School, when I asked him a few weeks ago if the financial crisis that is slowly eating into the economic strength of the world has reached the shores of Romblon.

By his answer, he meant, “Yes”, and if I may hasten to add, “Very direly”.

My next question is directed to the province’s political and economic managers: “How do we know?”

Indeed, how do we know that the global economic crunch, which has seen millions of people tumble into the unemployment bracket, has already affected Romblon’s 280,000-plus citizens? How do we know that the financial crisis, born in the U. S. A. and which has led to the election of the first black American president, is also leading Romblomanons to the path of economic ruin and social destitution?

Is there any indication that we are also crisis-hit? Are there already laid off Romblomanons? Are there Romblomanons going hungry—not eating three times a day or living on a budget of an average of US$1 a day, the United Nations’ threshold of poverty? Are there Romblon business people whose businesses are going under because of a credit crunch, falling sales, or increased business expenses? Indeed, are there Romblomanons who find no hope in their present situation?

I hope we know. I hope the provincial government knows.

Yes, I certainly wish it is aware of the magnitude of the crisis and its effects on all of us because, firstly, it is its duty to know, and secondly, it is its obligation to help find a solution to it. It is surely the responsibility of the provincial government to tell us if we are also being trashed about; if the people are already in dire straits, so that, in the absence of government support, we, the people, are able to remedy the situation. Makakaisip it medyos.

“Absence of government support” is actually a mild term. More appropriate would be the “absence of the provincial government in our very lives.”

Now, you’re listening.

The fact is, I have been trying to find out what actually the provincial government has done to help us these past three years, or many years before Natalio Beltran II has become our governor, to help us tide the harsh and hard economic times. The more I think of it, however, the more I realize there is none. Except to give us frustration and a sense of foreboding.

Let’s see why. Illegal logging and mining continues in Romblon. Illegal fishing continues to thrive. Corruption now is worse. Our agricultural productivity is static. Our schools continue to crumble and our jobless are on the rise. We see no plan to bail us out, for we have a provincial leader who has become a dealer, “dealer” being the anagram of “leader”.

A leader is supposed to deal us in hope, but this one deals us in hopelessness and despair. We remain to have no food on the table, no paved roads, no livelihood, no healthcare, and not enough educational opportunities. Let me detail that in my next columns.

Remember Frank? This typhoon showed us how our provincial government was not prepared in calamitous times. Remember the provincial hospital deal and how our governor planned to sink us further into debt? Do you remember the uniform of the provincial employees costing P1.7 million? There are more.

Yes, there are more. Two weeks ago, we were let on in the plan of the governor to spend again more than P1 million in government funds to lull into stupor provincial government employees on an errant nonsense, an Employees’ Day in Boracay!

Wow! Here we are, in the midst of a global financial crunch and our governor is throwing away money to the beaches of Boracay for government employees? Here we are, with our people unable to buy enough medicines and enough food and unable to send their children to the university, while our provincial government employees are planning a Boracay holiday. What gives? Where is the morality of such a spending spree? Nadayon baga kina, Vice Governor Alice?

Kamo ra nak mga hina sa kapitolyo, asing waya kamo gi tutulay ag suplahon kali-ong inro gobernador nak kung nio-niong kabulastugan ka nagkakayog sa utok? Asing pay nagsusugot-sugot yang kamo sa mga programa nida nak kayado-yado sa bagusbos it namamanwa?

I’ll say something to Beltran through this column: Governor, an employees’ day is in the office, at work, not in the beaches. Why would you spend almost a million pesos for government employees who can well afford to swim anywhere in Romblon whose beaches are far cleaner and more beautiful than Boracay’s?

So, to go back to my question if the Romblomanons are affected by the global financial crisis, well, yes, but not so much by the visible signs of economic deterioration, such as bank runs, unemployment, bankruptcy, and economic inactivity that the crisis engendered.

They are being affected by a crisis more severe, more debilitating, and more locale—the crisis of ineffective leadership which no tenured economist or rocket scientist can cure, except by the people themselves and this is by kicking Beltran out from the capitol in 2010 and replacing him by a milder, kinder version.

What do you say, Vice Governor Alice?