Is There No Room for Nationalism in the Medium-Term Development Plan?

Abstract

Lately, media has been inundated with criticism of the government's draft medium-term Philippine development plan 1993-1998. The hearings conducted by the Senate Committee on Economic Affairs have enlightened the public on how unrealistic some of the assumptions made by the nation's economic planners are regarding the so-called medium-term plan of the Ramos administration to transform our ailing economy into newly-industrializing country (NIC) status by the turn of the century. The problems that the plan, by design, or neglect, has been evading the following: 1) the debt crisis; 2) which industries are going to be hurt and what kind of adjustments should be made to minimize dislocations; 3) the problem of redressing social inequity; 4) the development of the domestic market and domestic-oriented industries; 5) constitutional guidelines on the economy; 6) lessons learned from development failures in the past; 7) the importance of local producers - the mass of workers.