McCain should interest Filipinos in RP

As a Filipino writing from the Philippines, I would not presume to know how Americans would go this November as they go about choosing their own president, now that the two leading contenders --- Barack Obama and John McCain --- have given their main acceptance speeches.

Outsiders such as myself only have such speeches to go by, and the body language of the candidates that we see on tv, to make our own choices, even if such choices eventually have no bearing on the outcome, being mere observers and not participants.

And we are not even casual or willing observers. We are compelled to observe because we have no choice but to be involved, as if our very own lives, literally, depended on it. There is some hard truth to the notion that "when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches cold."

From where I sit on the other side of the globe, and judging solely from the acceptance speeches I heard of either candidate at their respective party's national convention, I think I as a Filipino in the Philippines would feel a little more comfortable with McCain than Obama.

Obama just promised too much that I was sapped of all the credulity I was willing to give any politician, Filipino or American. Obama talked as if he knew the answer to everything. A guy who talks like that is a guy who does not know his own limitations.

And a guy who does not know his limitations is a guy who cannot be trusted. He will be a guy guided in his actions not by hard and proven facts but by assumptions and untested theories. And America has too critical a role to play on the world stage to stand on theoretical legs.

McCain, on the other hand, promised much less than Obama, perhaps not even half of the moon and the stars that the Democrat nominee said he would bring home in November. While Obama stuck his head above the clouds, McCain planted his foot on the ground, stayed closer to home.

There was at least one thing McCain said that should be of reassuring interest to a growing number of Filipinos in the Philippines, they who work in the burgeoning business process outsourcing industry.

Tens of thousands of young Filipinos in the Philippines have found good paying jobs in this new industry, many of whose players are American-based companies. But Obama has promised to bring these jobs back to America.

McCain in not impervious to this loss of jobs for Americans. But he has sense enough to understand this is how emerging trends in the world economy dictated it to be, and has promised to cope accordingly.

"Keeping taxes low helps small businesses grow and create new jobs. Cutting the second highest business tax rate in the world will help American companies compete and keep jobs from moving overseas," McCain said.

In effect, he is not going to do what Obama has promised to do, which is to bring those jobs back to America. Instead, McCain promised to adjust, stop the bleeding, but without having to interfere with how the market swings.

McCain said: "My opponent promises to bring back old jobs by wishing away the global economy. We're going to help workers who've lost a job that won't come back, find a new one that won't go away." Now who can argue with a most sensible tack as that?

There was another thing McCain said that should make Filipinos in the Philippines sit up and ponder upon: "My fellow Americans, when I'm President .... we are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much."

That line was said in relation to a massive government spending program he plans to undertake in relation to power generation and sufficiency in energy. But the consequences of such spending will mean cutbacks to foreign aid upon which the Philippines is so dependent on.

As a country heavily dependent on US aid, especially vital assistance to our poorly equipped military, the Philippines has hypocritically and ungratefully taken the anti-American stance popular in other parts of the world. Well, we have just been served our notice.