MANILA, Philippines – With a performance score card of 71% from SWS, P-Noy has certainly enough reason to celebrate. Even Sen. Joker Arroyo who had been critical of some of his policies had given him high marks, having sustained public trust.

Among others, P-Noy’s noted these highlights of the government’s accomplishments during the last three months: Exposed anomalous benefits of government-owned and controlled corporations; minimized government spending through careful evaluation of projects; upgraded PAGASA’s weather forecasting capability; strengthened battle against tax evaders; removal from the Tax Haven list; increase in the gross international reserves; initiated projects on increasing the number of airports and LRT lines; and AFP modernization. We can even boast of having one of the best performing stock markets in Asia! Among the current program thrusts are the K-12 educational reform which will add two years to the present 10-year basic education cycle, expansion of the conditional cash transfer program for the poorest of the poor, focus on food security and productivity, job generation, and meeting targets for the Millennium Development Goals.

What makes us hopeful is that we are assured that this is a “listening government” which is “prepared to tell the truth” and lead us to the “matuwid na daan."

But two international experts warn us of challenges and pitfalls along the development path. Although they are primarily those facing the United States, we can see their relevance in the context of our own development strategy. Jeffrey Sachs, a prominent development economist and author of “The End of Poverty,” tells us that “unless we break the ugly trends of big-money politics and rampant consumerism, we risk winning economic productivity at the price of our humanity.” He points at the lessons we can now learn from America which is now “facing a moral crisis.” He blames this on its primary focus on economic growth – for the failure of its rich sectors to respond to the needs of others. Consumerism, whetted by advertising which is spreading in many parts of the world, has “drained the time, attention, and inclination” of many so that they are unable to “engage in acts of collective compassion.” This is expressed in attitudes such as the claim that they have no responsibility to the rest of society. It is shown in behavior such as defense of one’s narrow personal interests and refusal to come to the aid of the destitute. Although Sachs is describing the United States, this is likely to happen elsewhere – in our globally connected world, and especially where there are great divides between the rich who have access to power and resources and the majority, representing the marginalized.

Thomas Friedman, author of “The World is Flat” and “Hot, Flat, and Crowded,” explains in his latest book, how global warming, rapidly growing populations, and the astonishing expansion of the world’s middle-class through globalization, have produced a planet that is “hot, flat, and crowded.” Most are aware of the threat of global warming (“hot”) and overpopulation (“crowded”). “Flat” refers to the seamless, unobstructed global marketplace where people are able to buy and sell, work, and collaborate together. The book focuses on five key problems, the consequences that a hot, flat, and crowded world could intensify – growing demand for scarce energy supplies and natural resources, massive transfer of wealth to oil-rich countries, disruptive climate change, energy poverty, which is sharply dividing the world into electricity-haves and electricity have-nots, and accelerating biodiversity loss as plants and animals go extinct at record rates. The author believes that unless we are able to manage these problems, they could cause irreversible disruptions. To solve these problems would require “new tools, new infrastructure, new ways of thinking, and new ways of collaborating with others.” In a few years, it will be too difficult to fix things, he notes, as he presents the challenge – coming up with serious efforts to replace our wasteful, inefficient energy practices with a strategy for clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation, which he describes as “Code Green.” My e-mail is florangel.braid@gmail.com