High ratings but no jobs

Lowdown

By Jojo Robles

In all, according to news reports, 15,000 people in 13 provinces, mostly in the Visayas and Mindanao, put P12 billion into the latest pyramid scam. And despite the number of spectacular schemes already dreamed up to victimize the gullible in the past, the Aman Group fiasco certainly won’t be the last that will separate fools from their money.

Some will say that the people scammed by Aman deserved what they ended up with, which are basically worthless postdated checks with sky-high interest rates of up to 70 percent of their original “investments.” No one, after all, should believe promises of such great short-term gains, despite the “proof” of early investors who cashed in after reaping their mind-boggling returns.

But there is also a lot to be said for the argument of those who think that government —specifically the Securities and Exchange Commission— should take a more active hand in preventing such terrible schemes from claiming more victims in the future. As it is, we only hear of government stepping into the fray long after the perpetrators have disappeared and the unsuspecting (but admittedly greedy) victims have already been fleeced.

Is it too much to ask SEC to be on the lookout for such scammers, who are not exactly hidden from view, especially when they are only beginning to lure their potential marks with promises of unheard-of profits? Why can’t SEC or some other government agency help stamp out pyramiding schemes by monitoring outfits like Aman when they set up shop and start making their eye-popping payouts?

As for the people who fall for schemes such as Aman’s, it’s true that there’s probably one of these people born every minute, and that no one can ultimately prevent these people from throwing away their money at whatever they want, even if they know in their hearts that they will never see it again. It would be nice though if the government would look out for their welfare and at least warn them about where not to invest in the first place.

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Merely a month after Social Weather Stations reported that President Noynoy Aquino was enjoying his highest popularity ratings since he was elected in 2010, the survey outfit announced that self-rated unemployment went up in the third quarter of 2012, from 26.6 percent last May to 29.4 percent in August. The SWS’s surveyed unemployment rate, which translates to 8 million unemployed workers, is almost four times higher than the government’s official unemployment figure of 7.0 percent (or 2.8 million unemployed) as of July.

But in the SWS report published by BusinessWorld, the polling group said the unemployment rate for the third quarter was still lower than the March figure of 34.4 percent. Most of those surveyed said they were hopeful that they would land jobs in the near future, something that may or may not have nothing to do with the optimism that is prevalent as the Christmas season approaches.

Typical of government’s reaction was the one elicited from Labor Secretary Luzviminda Baldoz, who said that there are jobs to be had if only workers are adequately trained for them. And the job of training workers, according to Baldoz, is conveniently not her department’s but that of the Technical Skills Development Authority.

At least one academic, however, found the latest survey results unsurprising. University of the Philippines School of Labor and Industrial Relations Professor Rene Ofreneo told BusinessWorld that the increase in unemployment “sounds logical because there are no major local job creation… program[s].”

The last SWS survey on the people’s satisfaction with Aquino, on the other hand, showed a tremendous increase in the President’s ratings. In August, this SWS survey said, Aquino’s net satisfaction rating stood at a “very good” +67, representing a 25-point gain from Aquino’s rating of +42 in May, and surpassing his previous “very good” +64 number in November 2010.

Naturally, Aquino’s spokesmen crowed that this means people love the President—even if a nearly simultaneous survey was being conducted showing that a lot of people could not find jobs to feed themselves and their families.

“The results of these surveys, both within and beyond our borders, validate the brand of leadership that the President has continuously espoused—of transparency and accountability, of restoring trust and rebuilding public institutions, and of honesty and integrity in public service,” was a typical overheated reaction from one palace spokesman at the time.

It truly is a puzzlement, this supposed satisfaction of people who aren’t even sure if they can earn enough to keep body and soul together in the here and now. But that’s what the surveys say.

Perhaps people see no connection between a President who promises reforms but who cannot give them jobs, or even foster an economic environment that creates them. Or perhaps people are just starting to make that connection.