The interrelation of money and progress

The saying that "money is the root of all evil" captures only a facet of the problem of money – and that is its misuse. For money is not and cannot be intrinsically evil. What is evil is man’s relentless pursuit of money and material things as an end in itself, or worse, to use money for needs and purposes less than noble.

But money, viewed in its rightful perspective and used for the purpose it is created, is far from being the root of all evil and is the source of so much good. Indeed, money serves a multifarious purpose all necessary and propitious in the dealing of men and nations. Money is a medium of exchange that enables and facilitates the commercial transactions among men.

As a medium of exchange, it provides the actual, tangible commodity that enables and facilitates the conduct of business activities in goods and services. Money is also a measure of value that provides the common yardstick by which productive activities and endeavors are precisely measured. It is a storage of value whereat the worth of goods and services can be pegged and determined. As such, it doubles and acts as the repository of worth.

With all these laudable ends of money it should be surely apparent that the root of so much evil is not the money per se but the lack of it, to be more precise. For that exactly is what plagues the nation today. There is so little money left in circulation that government is unable to finance the necessary infrastructure and utilities that is a requisite for nation building. The paucity of money derails government programs for roads, railways, bridges, ports, airports, power and communication facilities, to name a basic few. With the scarcity of money there are lesser jobs for the jobless, less homes for the homeless, and less land for the landless. Poverty, in short – is the condition of manifest want for money. By this definition, the Philippines is poor.

As unfortunate as our present condition is, there is still hope to reverse the trend. The obvious solution is for the economy, most especially the productive sector, to have easier and more access to money. Adequate money will surely finance all the infrastructure and utilities requirements of the country. Sufficient money supply will address the needs for food, shelter, clothing and education. Money in the right amount and properly used will leapfrog us to development. Money will salvage our millions of poor from grinding poverty. Good money will save the country from being poor.

There was a time when the Philippines was leading the pack of other Asian countries in the march towards development and industrialization second to Japan. After the Second World War and way into the late 1950s, the Philippines set the pace and trend in such vital areas as agriculture and food production. However, somewhere along the way, the Philippine economy slipped, took a drastic fall and remained in sick bay for a long, long time.

Our faltering economy is the result of misdirected government monetary and fiscal policies and botched priorities as much as it is a reflection of the sluggishness of business and the apathy of our workforce. The inertia of economic stagnation is foreboding. While fortunately, we have to some extent picked-up ourselves from this economic quagmire, much is still to be done.

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