Quote:
Originally Posted by winfieldgold
From an economical standpoint..Fields will remain. 
my simple analysis
w.f.g |
I dont quite agree .. with people in Pina Land so super screwed up in economics, they may still pull the plug, and let a 100,000 people directly and indirectly employed- be jobless ... Like the NPA, which burns down factories and bus yards and expects people to be employed ..
conflict of interest, yeah ? Like the Manila Mayor shutting down LAC (for non payment of election fee) and then quitely ignoring the ruckus that surrounded the shut down when 300 legitimate staff were jobless .. He didn't care a hoot, as long as he got what he wanted, money and fame .. (and then quitely let the place open back as MBC) - don't under estimate the power of pinoy mentality - they can commit a murder for the simple sake of defending their honor and proving a point, and still, as per their law, walk scot free, without even a criminal record - REAL SCOT FREE .. and DEEMED 100% innocent .. (remember PNoy refusing to apologise to HK ? saying the apology should come from the gunman's family ? and 90% of the filipinos back PNoy on that .. )
And Fields has been there longer .. like, 30 years ??
I had my first foray into Fields in 2001, and it was thriving, and the US AF / USN literally shed blood to get Fields to it's then hey-days and glory .. and the fields today is a minor mirror image of it's former glory ..
And to top it off, I still don't know what they did to hide the long runway, which disappeared under the Volcano ash .. is that encroached area ?
Anyway, the growth is primarily due to LCC traffic, and I would safely hazard a guess that not all of the 600 to 900 odd passengers a day are going to Fields ..
And to top it off, while there are strong forces at work, with their crony politics, stronger forces are at work to retain NAIA as the main airport .. maybe in 20 years time a super fast rail will be up and running to justify DMIA as a contender as the Manila Airport, though .. chinese are really all out to cut the North Rail to less than 2 years to implement, not forgetting that it could all be a pipe dream, if NPA comes alive .
And many an NGO keeps harping about slavery and trafficking, who, without such words, will have to close shop ..
Something about NGOs, from another forum .. (no, not gonna mention the forum .. )
"You make two good points: first, that NGO executive salaries—and the lifestyles they purchase-are often an irritant when displayed in the developing countries they propose to serve; second, that NGOs contributed to the mess in Haiti. I agree on both points, but both also need to be qualified.
Haiti has been characterized as NGOs and the UN run amok. The new Haitian president claims that the post-disaster philanthropic outpouring is all spent. It's not clear how he knows that, but we can take him at his word. It seems to me, however, that it's sort of a chicken-and-egg problem: no functional government, too many NGOs working with haphazard regard for each others' activities. Both are part of the problem, but which one is the 'cause' of the mess? Some are now insisting that the NGOs need to get out of the way and let government play the role it's supposed to play. Right! Just like it's been doing since the sugar plantation slaves revolted against the plantation owners in the late 18th Century. How's that worked out over the ensuing 200 plus years?
Regarding CEO salaries, I found one source, whose legitimacy I can't substantiate, reporting that the 'average' NGO CEO's salary is $97,000. Seems like a lot of money, but I'd be willing to bet that's a mean salary—calculated by dividing the sum of all salaries by the number of salaries. Mean salaries are notoriously skewed toward the few huge salaries at the top end. Median salary—the point at which 50% of salaries are larger and 50% are smaller—is most certainly less than $97K. In addition, the data for high end salaries are necessarily more reliable than for low end salaries, since the latter come from the odds and ends of little organizations operating on shoestring budgets, voluntary labor, and unreliable records.
Please consider the range of organizations that fall under the vague definition of nongovernmental organization. The World Bank characterizes NGOs as private organizations that pursue principally humanitarian or cooperative, rather than commercial, objectives, such as relieving suffering, alleviating poverty, protecting the environment, providing basic social services, or promoting community development—primarily in developing countries. They run the gamut from World Vision, ostensibly the largest international NGO ($1.03 billion annual revenues in their latest tax return), down to little community-based organizations with one or two feebly-paid, mostly voluntary, leaders. I have no particular truck with World Vision; they're a Christian organization and I've been an avowed agnostic for more than 40 years. But their annual report brochure claims that they delivered disaster relief for 80 international emergencies, developed clean water sources in Africa, provided thousands of small business loans, promoted HIV / AIDS prevention education, and provided 4 million child sponsorships. Their annual report brochure contains not a single whisper about human trafficking or sexual exploitation. And this is the biggest NGO in the world. They paid their CEO, Richard Stearns, $391K: a lot of money, but not when compared to for-profit corporations with similar revenues. Admittedly, if Richard Stearns came to Manila, he'd stay at Shangri-La in Makati or Ortigas, but his ostentatious comings and goings make him look like just another rich Kano to the few Filipinos who'd see him.
At the other end of the scale is the little community-based NGO I know in a municipality just outside metro Manila. It operates on a shoestring, with four poorly paid employees, trying to create disaster readiness for squatter communities built in the low-lying flood plains of two rivers. They also promote sustainable small-scale business and maintain a revolving micro-finance loan program. They live on small government grants and money infused from a couple of large international NGOs. Their CEO is becoming known as an expert on the impact of disasters on informal settlements, and he knows how to do community organizing, but he's seen as a threatening irritant to corrupt local politicians who regard the squatters as collateral damage that's unavoidable in their continued pursuit of public financial largesse. He is not our enemy, any more than Richard Stearns is.
So why this chocolate-hearted rant from Skip about NGOs? Because it matters what we do with our annoyance about the efforts of some to attack sex trafficking in the most simplistic and misguided fashion. Sex trafficking does exist in the Philippines, but the careless characterizations of some zealots make it appear that all sex for pay here is synonymous with exploited women and children. It matters how we respond to them.
Not all NGOs are the enemy; in fact, most are not. And even in an NGO like Human Rights Watch, there appears to be a growing awareness that the dynamics are more complicated than what's often conveyed in the popular press. Surely much of the anti-trafficking passion is fomented by a segment of feminists and by fundamentalist religious do-gooders. And then there are the many others who ride along on the wave of passionate rhetoric without really reflecting on its inconsistencies. There is also a mass of journalists who have had little incentive to think critically about the complex dynamics of sexuality, pay for play, and world poverty."