Mary Rose C.

Umali

BSA-1

"Basagan ng Trip with Leloy Claudio"

A Reflection Paper

"Basagan ng Trip" is a video where two episodes were presented. The first episode talks about
the inflation -why it is not always bad, why country needs to incur debt, and how OFWs benefit from the
depreciation of the Philippine Peso. The second episode is about the economics of TRAIN Law 1, its
iflation and the Build build build program.

In episode one, a country is compared to a household that like it, a country needs to incur debt.
To understand it, we need to look at a country as a household where parents needs to budget or
manage its finances in order to survive. Just like a household, it is not bad that it has debts as long as it
can pay back how much it has borrowed. The next topic tackled is about the inflation. It is the
measurement of how fast is the increase or decrease of the prices of products and services. The rate of
inflation is correlated to the level of economic activity of a country. When there is economic growth,
there is increase in income and surely there is also increase in the inflation rate. The next topic is the
currency rate. It is either the Peso appreciates or depreciates. When Peso depreciates, this benefits the
exporters and OFWs because when dollars are exchanged to peso, their money amounts to a big sum.
But when it is concurrent to inflation, their money has less purchasing power.

Not all things or concepts that seems bad, are always bad. Like mentioned before, debt and
inflation are not always bad. It just needs to be balanced in order to lessen the negative impact. Like the
saying, there is is always two sides of the story. For me, this not only means that there are two versions
of a story but also there are two effects. Inflation has its good effects, it helps the workers to have higher
wages, the retailer and grocers to have good sale. Having debts does not mean its bad, it helps one to
have resources to survive. When there is no debt, and there is also no resources, no one will have means
to survive.

Episode two, the economics of TRAIN Law. The timing of the TRAIN Law is not very good
because the inflation is high. With or without the TRAIN Law, the prices of products and services are
already high because of inflation and it increased more due to. This Law will make the poor suffer more
because they won't be able to purchase their needs. Although there will be financial help coming from
the government, it will not be enough. There is a quote that goes, "give a man a fish and feed him from
a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime". If the government will just give them direct
help, they will be dependent but if they will provide work or livelihood programs, it will teach them to
be independent and strive for their families. That is the negative effect that will be faced by the
government.