The Philippines is considered as a third world country which means, our economic status is still struggling, compared to other countries. In fact, we are known to be one of the countries who are leading in graft and corruption of government officials. These government officials work hard to propose projects which could help our country in various aspects. But are these enough for the Philippines to be progressive in terms of economy? Are these programs enough to offset the corruption in the government?
I am not satisfied with the achievements of the previous presidents because I can’t see the improvement in our country through the years. The government officials promise us great plans to look forward to but once they get elected, these promises would be gone with the wind. Although some of their plans had benefits and were implemented successfully, most of the programs they launched were not credible and insufficient to meet the needs of the citizens. There were a lot of irrelevant projects that were prioritized more than the important ones. That just goes to show that some of them just formulated projects just to be able to say that they did something for the country, disregarding its importance. It is normal for a president to encounter problems in his administration, but he should focus on addressing the problem and not deal with insignificant programs first. One more thing about their programs is that they have good intentions and ideals but there were hidden agendas behind them. An example of this is the issue about the overpriced projects and expenditures of the government which used the people’s money. There were a lot of anomalies which were brought by the corruption of government officials. Politicians are tempted to get their own share of money in any way that they can. The president ought to be the one to promote transparency on the government transactions but sometimes they were the ones who were influenced by their peers in getting money for themselves. These were seen in the recent presidents like Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Above all, the main reason why I’m not contented with the contributions of the past presidents is because the programs which were made before weren’t sustained until now. Most of the projects in the past administrations were really good and were successful, yet the successive presidents weren’t able to continue these. Some were abolished; some were revised, until they weren’t effective anymore. Problems are generated because of the major problem of our country which is corruption. This branches out to more serious problems that would lead to the downfall of the country’s economic status.
In the end, the president is the one responsible for the well-being of his constituents. Thus, he should be competent enough not only to handle the problems of the country, but also think of solutions and programs to develop the overall standing of our country. We should not merely look at the numerous achievements that he has accomplished; instead we should weigh the value of each program and its help for the whole nation.