I cannot understand why people pointed the Catholicism as the cause of poverty in the Philippines. Catholicism does not teach people to steal, on the contrary, it teaches to love your fellow as you love yourself. Had the Filipinos followed this commandment, Philippines might be one of the rich nations on Earth. The U.S. became great because of their Christian belief. I came across a blogger who told that it’s because priests are corrupt and have secret affairs with women. If a priest has an affair with a girl, is this the deed of the Catholic Church? does the Church teach their priests to be immoral? If a priest has an immoral affair, does he steal the money of the nation? How many government positions that the Catholic leaders hold? The affairs of the Church has nothing to do with Government.
The main cause is corruption. The Philippines has been in poverty because of the massive corruption in her government. Most of her politicians if not all are corrupt. They love money more than their neighbors. They are Christians in names but not in their hearts, they just worship Jesus Christ on their lips. Marcos had stolen 5 to 10 Billion dollars from the country that bankrupted her in 1983.
The secondary cause is the calamities that strike the country annually. Many lives and Millions or even Billion of pesos are lost per year.
The third reason is the ignorant voters. Most Filipino voters are clueless enough to keep voting politicians disregarding their bad records. Some are loyalists who are ready to fight against their family and friends just to defend their political idol, even if this politician is proven corrupt and murderer. Some voters are for money alone, any candidate who can give them larger price during election, they will vote for him/her.
The fourth reason that holds the Philippines from growing is the ever-existing war in Mindanao, Muslim extremists keep insisting their sovereignty. To tell you, their god Allah doesn’t like non-Muslims esp. Christians and Jews. If a Muslim becomes devoted to his religion, he will end up killing non-Muslims and Hypocrites. Muslims who refuse to go Jihad or to fight in the cause of Allah are called Hypocrites. The Malaysian government (Muslim country) trained and financed the activity of these rebels as admitted by Nur Misuari, the founder of MNLF.
Another cause that impedes the Philippine economy from growing is China. This country founded communism and supported the communist party in the Philippines before. The CPP-NPA rebels have been warring against the Philippine government for a long time. The massive human right abuse by the government of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. also contributed the growth of rebellion. The decades war between the Philippines and the separatist has been causing serious instability in the country that affects businesses and tourism. From China comes the shabu manufacturers that makes the Philippines a shabu market. Of course the activity of this drug syndicates cannot progress without the help of some officials in the country. Many of the politicians attracted to the fat bribes offered by China. Many of the law enforcers just seize shabu for money. If a Chinese druglord is willing to pay a large sum, the officials just let the drug dealer and his shabu skipped. Just like what happened recently, where Billions of pesos worth of shabu slipped past the Bureau of Custom twice in a row. President Duterte instead of penalizing the heads of the Bureau of Custom, he just transferred them to another government positions. Government Officials in the Philippines are not afraid to commit corruption because they are backed by the president or other high official. And if they get imprisoned, they comfortably live under house arrest. And most of these convicted politicians will be pardoned and released by the next president that they supported during election. China also keeps harassing the Filipinos, depriving them to cultivate the oil-rich area in the West Philippine Sea even if it is well within their Exclusive Economic Zone. Chinese coastguards keep chasing the Filipino fishermen and drive them out from their own fishing ground, allowing their fishermen to monopolize the area. Today, Filipinos are now importing fishes from China which are caught from their own fishing territory.
