I’ve always been a believer in being practical about our economic situation as a nation. There simply isn’t enough for everyone, and without that being solved, we can’t dream of becoming an Asian tiger of sorts or an NIC (newly industrialized country) that former president Ramos had desirously envisioned before his term ended at the time of the Asian financial crisis.

He did good leadership by the way, I can tell you that. I still believe his was the best presidency we ever had after Cory Aquino.

Of his dream of us being NIC, that hasn’t been realized. And now, as Noynoy’s presidency comes to a close, I don’t see that coming. And as for Noynoy, did he ever have one strong economic program for his six years and thereafter? I don’t remember any. He was more concerned with bringing back a moral government and a moral society, and by my measure he hasn’t done well on those.

Now, about the economy. I have always espoused that in such a situation as we are in now, our leaders should sit down and focus on what can be done to immediately resolve poverty and the fact that millions of our young citizens couldn’t go to school prepare for competitive employment because of poverty. With more than 20 percent of families below the poverty line, that’s millions of families starkly trying to meet their basic needs like food and clothing and shelter.

But look at where many of these families are living. Many are in the cities, but a lot more are in the provinces where there are vacant land areas unplanted, where there are many beautiful places that we could develop into resorts for tourists – domestic and foreign – to visit.

Wherever I go in the Philippines – up north in the mountains of Kalinga and Apayao and down south in the valleys and mountains of South Cotabato and Agusan – I see green plantations and golden beaches, breath fresh air, taste clean salt water. In Catanduanes, I never tire of standing on the side of the mountain roads on the east coast between Gigmoto and Viga looking at the beautiful blue waters below and the secret coves and hidden beaches there few people have gone to. And I always am thankful that God gave us this rich bounty of nature for us and future generations to enjoy.

But are we using that bounty of nature enough so we could live well off the earth?

Again, when I get a chance to go around and teach people about what I do best - which is write and communicate and teach people to write and communicate – I always make it a point to stress that there are two important things we need to do so we could live well off the earth – improve agriculture, and improve our tourism industry. Sadly, the Philippine government is only good at introducing nice-sounding concepts about these two critical avenues for improving the economy, and then give up half-way after bragging about the initiation.

In agriculture, we are now behind many of the countries that sent their young people to IRRI and other great agricultural institutes in the Philippines. Well, maybe partly because the people who taught them have gone out of the country and opted to settle elsewhere where they are better recognized, leaving behind their proteges whose one big dream, in turn, is to be able get out and work elsewhere. So the Thais, many of whom learned from us, are now able to produce macopa as big and red and juicy as apples, lanzones twice as large as those grown in Laguna and Quezon, and rice that smell so wonderful it’s priced three times the ordinary rice we consume and therefore is more attractive to the overseas market.

In tourism, Singapore, a small city-state with what we’d regard as a less-democratic set-up than ours, was able to attract at least 14 million visitors in the whole of 2014. The Philippines received roughly 4 million during the same year. As a matter of fact, more than 600,000 Filipinos visited Singapore that year as tourists.

Our close neighbor Indonesia had almost 9.5 million tourists in 2014. Well, Indonesia has far bigger territory and probably more tourism-oriented areas for foreigners to visit.

There is a lot more we could talk about regarding agriculture and tourism, but for me, if we’re looking for a quick fix to our economic woes, it’s those sectors we need to concentrate on. And that means propping the corresponding support mechanisms to get this done, especially education and training, and improving transport and communication infrastructure.

We need to educate farmers on which crops would raise them more money, and educate potential resort owners as well on how they should start developing their properties for maximum tourism potential. We need to improve our transport and communications so tourists would not have to spend too much to get where they wanted to and would be able to call home or use the internet in those resort areas even while they’re on a holiday.

And we need to be able to tell those potential tourists wherever they are now that here in the Philippine, here in Catanduanes, there are lots of places to visit and things to enjoy that they would not find elsewhere. That means we need to improve our promotion strategies beyond the state they are in now. 

There are other services that need to be improved, but I think if we start with these basics as I’ve enumerated, we can start off in the right direction and encourage our people to support the initiative.

It only takes some good leadership and vision to get this done. When people are convinced it’s for their own good and for their children, they’d gladly follow.