Fil-Ams weigh in on prospects for 2009
By Cesar Nucum Jr.
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 15:41:00 01/07/2009
Filed Under: World Financial Crisis, Minority groups
Guarded optimism best describes the way Filipino-Americans, interviewed by FilAm Star across the country, look at 2009, shaped mainly by the raging economic crisis and the promise of hope the Obama presidency professes to deliver.
Despite the mortgage meltdown, the Wall Street crash, mass layoffs and the country officially leading the world into a recession, Fil-Ams are relying on the much-touted Filipino resiliency rather than dwelling on issues that only serve to demoralize them.
Be Cecilio Herrera of Carson City, Nevada told the Star that this is the most serious economic crisis he has experienced since emigrating in 1987 from Cebu City in central Philippines. He singles out the speed at which the situation took a turn for the worst, conceding that he did not expect the handwriting on the wall he had been seeing, and at times ignoring, would slam hard on his face.
In July, Herrera was laid off from his job as machine operator in a bank, even as the year before, he and his colleagues were putting in overtime hours “like crazy.”
By the time he was laid off, the workforce was lucky to be busy the whole week. “There were days when we were assigned to clean the machines for an entire shift because we didn't have any statements to print,” he said.
With unemployment insurance equivalent to only 60 percent of the pay he was getting, he has had to adjust his lifestyle big time. “I no longer go to the casinos to play or even eat. I now buy generic grocery brands and carefully plan my trips to the supermarket and to-do errands so I can save on gas,” he said.
This holiday season, he claims he didn't buy any new clothes or spend money on non-essential foods, like his favorite lechon and embutido. Herrera remains upbeat, however, confident that he will rise above the crisis with some belt-tightening. “I'm sure I'll survive this one,” he mused. “Kung sa Pilipinas, nakaya nating mabuhay nang ganon-ganon lang, dito pa kaya sa Amerika?”
But Herrera also cautions against complacency in the face of the Obama campaign promise of change, the same advice Roberto Morales of South San Francisco is ready to give to those who care to listen.
“Look, let’s all realize that Obama and McCain devised their campaign platforms at the time the economic situation was not this bad yet,” Morales pointed out. “Wall Street was just beginning to crumble then.”
Morales stressed that it would be unfair for the new White House tenant to be looked up to as the almighty savior, without the people doing their share and helping themselves out of the rut. “The road to our own recovery and prosperity will eventually depend on how we take matters into our own hands,” he said. “There will always be opportunities out there. After all it’s still the early bird that really catches the worm.”
Over at River Vale, New Jersey, Johnny Brillantes, a sales professional, considers the current crisis severe enough to cut back on expenses -- from groceries to vacations – for the first time since 1980, for fear of being out of a job too. Many of his relatives and friends have been laid off in the last two months.
“One sad effect of this crisis is, there are now less family get-togethers, especially since my son comes home from college less frequently to save on gas,” Brillantes sadly disclosed. One good effect of the crisis, according to him, is that everyone now all of a sudden has become more money-conscious, careful when it comes to spending and putting a stop to impulse buying.
“I am very confident that the economy will pick up,” Brillantes predicts, “but as to when…that is now the big question. But by 2010, the United States would be well on the road to recovery.” “I have faith in Obama when he promised to make economic recovery his top priority. But if he fails, the whole country – if not most of the world -- goes down with him,” he added.
For his part, Redante Asuncion-Reed, web page editor of a Washington D.C. non-profit organization, has no big expectations for 2009 as he expects the economy to remain in the doldrums.
At the same time Asuncion-Reed laments, “Although an Obama presidency would be a vast improvement from the current administration, I have yet to hear any bold plans from him on how he intends to lead the country to an entirely different direction.”
Asuncion-Reed views Obama as still a centrist Democrat, who has assembled a Cabinet that, save for picking the Labor Secretary, is very traditional -- corporate-friendly politics as usual. Like Herrera and Brillantes, however, he hopes that 2009 will be better.
Since he considers government as only one among the actors in the economy, and the system and dominant ideology are still very much free-market oriented, he doubts the government would be effective in pump-priming the U.S. economy.
“Our economy is dependent on the overall health of the world economy in general, so that much of what happens here might very well be beyond the control of the Obama administration,” Asuncion-Reed maintains.
On the other hand, Ric Banea, a 28-year resident of the Chicago area and a United States Postal Service worker, thinks the last four years of the eight-year George W. Bush administration have been the saddest years in memory, because that's when the economy started going downhill.
He sees Bush as one of the worst, if not the worst, president the U.S. ever had. “Before ‘Dubya’ took over the White House, our family went on vacations, often in the Philippines, and paid them off easily without ‘breaking the bank,” Banea rued. “Lately though, we can hardly go anywhere and do something because it is difficult to pay off and before you know it, you are up to your neck in debt. Nowadays, too, we try to cut down on expenses that we can live without, like lavish birthday parties and even Christmas and New Year celebration.”
Although he thinks not everybody will ride out the recession, home foreclosures, and job losses, the postal service veteran has faith that the new president can turn the economy around before his four-year term ends.
FilAm Star
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