Interview with Filipino economist Antonio Tujan

“The problem with the labour-export policy the Philippines has totally embraced since the 1970s is that it is not the solution to the country’s underdevelopment. First of all, this is not sustainable because you are always at the mercy of the host countries,” explained Antonio Tujan, IBON’s director for international affairs, in an interview with ex-Ponto.

 ex Ponto Magazine nr.10

Tujan, who is also chair of Reality of Aid, was recently in Amsterdam to speak at IBON-sponsored international forum on the global financial and economic crisis, which also featured economists and experts from the Philippines, the US, and the Netherlands.

Another problem, according to Tujan, is that the bulk of the foreign exchange earned by the government from these remittances goes to servicing the country’s foreign debt that only balloons year after year. “And of course to official corruption,” said Tujan. Besides, the money spent by OFWs and their families are not invested on any industrial production but are spent on direct consumption, Tujan said.

“In fact the lack of visible domestic economy is at the root of the massive unemployment that forces the people to search for jobs elsewhere. If you don’t give attention to industrializing the country, don’t expect to generate enough employment,” Tujan said.

Tujan: “What the country has now are these assembly and repackaging plants owned by the world’s biggest transnational corporations that are always guaranteed of cheap, contractual and docile labourers.”

The Philippines remains mainly an agricultural country, an exporter of cheap raw and semi-processed materials and importer of expensive finished products. Land reform has been the cornerstone of Philippine presidents since Marcos, but to this day 70 percent of agricultural land remains in the hands of a few landlords.

Tujan: “Because the country sells cheap and buys expensive, a negative balance of payment is but to be expected. And because you always have a budget deficit, you then go to multilateral financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and allow to restructure your economy in exchange for loans.”

Tujan said that the Philippines has been the most obedient pupil of the World Bank and IMF as far as opening up the Philippine economy to Northern interests. “Under the so-called neoliberal globalization, the country has obsequiously followed the mantra of privatization, liberalization and deregulation. From Green Revolution to Structural Adjustment Programs, name it we did it.”

“And where are we now? After being Asia’s second biggest economy, next only to Japan, in the ‘60s, the Philippines is now often referred to as the ‘sick man of Asia’,” Tujan quipped.

Now that the global economic crisis is worsening, Tujan expects that migrant Filipinos will again be in the losing end. He doesn’t expect that outmigration will suddenly stop, but a slowdown in demand, he says, will definitely pull down further migrant wages because more workers from different countries will be competing for fewer jobs.

“In times of crisis xenophobia is also a problem. Calls such as ‘German jobs for Germans’, British jobs for British” and their other variations are now becoming frequent. Usually it is the government or political parties that fan this anti-migrant sentiment to score points from voters or to look for scapegoats and cover up their accountability or role in the economy’s downward lurch,” he said.

The challenge now according to Tujan is to impress upon the local people that they, just like the migrants in their midst, are all victims of this crisis, “which was created by the unbridled greed of those in powers.”

“In time of crisis, we should all call on the government to expand its concept of citizenship, to extend its help not only to those who are passport-holders, but to all the people, documented or undocumented, living within its borders,” Tujan says.

Read an article of Carlito Parungo about the Migrant Face of the economic crisis in ex Ponto nr.8