EDITORIAL - An unfulfilled promise

The day national candidates started scouring the country in last week's formal opening of the campaign period for the May 9 elections, a survey revealed that almost 10 million Filipinos are still unemployed.

The Social Weather Station survey, administered from December 8 to 17 last year, showed that at least 9.1 million Filipinos remain out of job. However, the figure was lower than the 10 million Filipinos unemployed in September.

In the December 2015 SWS survey, unemployed included those first-time jobseekers and those who resigned from work or were retrenched. But housewives, those retired and disabled, and those looking for a job although unemployed, were excluded from the poll.

The results of the survey only showed that the government has failed to fulfill its promise. With a high percentage of the country's population still unemployed, it's clear that the Aquino administration scored poorly in its effort to create more jobs.

President Benigno Aquino III has been boasting that his administration was able to create more jobs as a result of the country's revitalized economy, whose growth in the past years has been one of the fastest in the world.

He was clearly relying on government data that showed more foreign investments came in during his presidency on account of strong confidence from the international community in the country following the government's robust campaign against corruption.

But for many, those state records are just purely statistics given the country's prevailing unemployment rate. The truth is that the government's vaunted economic growth failed to trickle down to the lowest sector, as the poor continue to compose the largest chunk of the population.

While we cannot deny that the economy has been improving and that investments are soaring to all-time high, the problem lies in the fact that available jobs are only for those qualified few. And despite having the most number of workers, growth in the agricultural sector remains the lowest because it failed to attract more investments.

As the poll campaign goes full blast, each presidential candidate will certainly have a grand time vowing more jobs, more investments, among others, before the electorate. Of course, outlining promises is the easiest part of the campaign. But the real trouble will be in the actual performance of the job of fulfilling them.