Common use of DEVELOPING THE NATIONAL ECONOMY Clause in Contracts

DEVELOPING THE NATIONAL ECONOMY. The Philippine economy remains trapped in semifeudal and semicolonial backwardness. The neoliberal free market policies of globalization imposed by United States (US) imperialism and other big economic powers since the 1980s have worsened the country’s underdevelopment and the plight of the Filipino people. The country has vast agriculture, forestry, aquatic, and energy resources. It is among the most mineral-rich countries in the world with many of the basic minerals needed for industrial develop- ment. Our population is also a huge prospective productive labor force and domestic market. Yet the economy remains backward, agricultural, and with an insignificant Filipino industrial sector. Since the 1990s, it has fur- ther turned into a shallow service and trading economy more than a producing economy. As a semifeudal economy, it supplies foreign capital and econo- mies with cheap labor and exports of agricultural and extractive raw materials, while chronically importing industrial inputs, capi- tal equipment, finished goods, and agricultural commodities. The exploiters have made sure that they concentrate and accumulate the benefits from the economy in themselves. All these keep tens of millions of Filipinos poor and the econ- omy in the worst crisis of joblessness in its entire history. Peasant landlessness and rural backwardness are widespread. More ▇▇▇▇▇▇- nos are unemployed, in poor quality informal work, and more than ever forced to find employment abroad. A strategic economic program of self-reliant Philippine devel- opment encompassing agrarian reform, rural development, and national industrialization that gives due consideration to the envi- ronment is needed to develop the national economy. This means rejecting neoliberalism and replacing this with responsible state intervention and the democratic participation of the Filipino masses. A truly democratic and sovereign economy that benefits the majority of Filipino people will be the foundation of a just and lasting peace.