Existential importance of election 2022

Existential basically means continuing a way of life and eventually dying. So, when we say something is an existential threat, we mean it is a threat to the way we live or die. Events are existential dangers to people in different ways depending in their economic status, geographic location, demographics, and political conditions. Diminished quality of life, death rates, persecutions, and forced migration affect people differently depending on their total situation, and their ability to counteract the existential conditions.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is an existential event that has upended our way of life and death. The travel restrictions, lockdowns, quarantines, and other restrictions have altered the way we live. The global economic recessions have diminished our living conditions, increased poverty and suffering, and millions of people have died and will die. In the last 100 years, the two world wars, the flu pandemic, and the great economic depression in the US are the other global existential events.

In the Philippines, in the same 100 years, there were three existential events. These are World War II which included us when the Japanese invaded the Philippines, the martial law years of Marcos from 1972 to 1981, and the current COVID-19 pandemic. The fourth one will be the result and consequences of the 2022 elections which will surely tell on our way of life and death.

The two determinant factors for orderly living are political stability and economic growth, and they interact and feed on each other. Political stability and confidence in the government is necessary for economic growth which is needed for political stability. Then, political stability is needed for economic growth. This is obvious in what is happening now in Myanmar, Venezuela, and some African and Middle Eastern countries. To a lesser degree, this is also happening in some Eastern European and Latin American countries, compounded by the mishandling of their governments of the pandemic. The government actions in these countries are to be more authoritarian and restrictive, which led to a steeper downturn of their economies. This is what we do not want to happen in the Philippines.

Historically, the Philippine economy (GDP) from 1945 after World War II, had a growth potential of 4% per annum which was achieved up to 1950. From 1951 to 2009 it was expected to grow 6% annually, but from 1972 to 1981 during the martial law years, in nine of the 17 years, the Philippine GDP declined or went negative by .3 of 1% to as low of negative 9.4% in 1984. So, in these 17 years the economy lost a 25% growth that would have reduced poverty level by 5%. The economy started to recover in 1986 after the EDSA Revolution, and grew at its highest growth of 10.72% in that year, and averaged 6.5% per annum up to 2016, and 6% from 2017 to 2019. Then, the GDP declined or went negative again in 2020, to minus 9.57% and hopefully a 4% growth in 2021, from the low base of 2020.

The 2022 elections and who will be elected president are critical for the Philippine economy and our way of life because we have to recover the lost years of negative GDP growth in the next seven years. We have to grow the economy by 8% to 9% per annum or 50% over the next seven years to recover the missed growth in the martial law years and the pandemic years. This will only happen if we have a president who will inspire confidence from private, local, and foreign investors to jumpstart our economy, as the government is reaching the limits of its borrowing and spending capacity, and so has consumer spending. We need a president with a moral backbone against graft and corruption with a dedication to really serve the people. I pray and hope the Filipinos will rise up to this challenge or suffer more years of rising unemployment and poverty levels.