Virtually all presidential candidates are making promises right and left. Some of the promises are good and can possibly be done. The others that are not good can fall into any or all of as many categories as may be appropriate. Thus, there are promises that are just plainly bad. And then there are the funny, preposterous and the out-of-this world.
But none is as evil as those that are clearly meant to exploit the hopelessness and desperation of the human condition, promises that on face value can make the dead rise but are really never meant to stand the light of even the most cursory reality check and scrutiny. Still others are of the unthinking kind, made to buoy the spirits of some at the expense of others.
Take for example the head-long desire to please OFWs, a desire matched only in intensity by the yearning to win the votes of that vast sector. Promises have been made to provide a litany of benefits for OFWs and their families -- from virtually tax-free and inspection-free shipments and cargo, to health insurance and other medical benefits.
There is no arguing the contributions of OFWs to the economy. What politicians forget, however, is that OFWs are not the only contributors to the national well-being. In fact, the OFW contribution fails in comparison to the domestic contribution of workers right here in the Philippines. Critical to the economy the OFW contribution might be, it still cannot save the collapse of the economy if the domestic contribution suddenly fails to prop up the nation.
In other words, while a lot can be done to show appreciation to OFWs for their contribution, it hurts for the vast ocean of local workers to see aspiring leaders contort themselves into every shape and form just to attract the attention of OFWs while those who work and toil keep the real Philippine economy going get shoved aside and ignored as if they do not even exist at all.
While there seems to be a special regard for OFWs, locally employed Filipinos are slapped the highest taxes in the world, paid the lowest wages in the world, made to suffer interminably for their daily commute from home to work or school and back, are refused even the slightest increase in pensions that are already lower than the doleouts the government provides to make the poor beholden for election purposes.
In fact this space is too small and inadequate if all the exploitative abuses suffered by local workers from their own government and their employers were to be listed as a contrast to the preferential regard and treatment OFWs are being accorded. And it does not help to ease the pain that the promises made to OFWs are not even born of a genuine desire to help but rather to simply win votes. Had there been a genuine desire to help, surely they would not have missed seeing the locals.