Contemporary condition of the Philippines by applying both the dependency theory and

the world system theory

Philippine Economy: Progression or Regression?
The Philippines is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia with almost 107 million
people. It consists of more than 7,000 islands which is rich with natural resources. With its
human resources, it is still called a third world country. It is one of the countries who is incapable
of sustaining its own and is still controlled by other countries. If we are going to recall it, there
are countries who manipulated the Philippines back then, despite achieving its independence,
until now they are still in control and not yet free. Yes, Philippines has its own government who
make and enforces law to the citizen. And it is a democratic country where people can express
their own opinion or say on the issues. However, we are still dependent on the other nations.
And if we look into the current state of our nation, we will feel the dimness of it.
The colonization of the Spain and then United States presides the Philippines as a self-
governing commonwealth in 1935. President Rodrigo Duterte, elected in 2016, has laid his
hands to China to improve the economy. His authoritarian act became a great deal to the public
as he crackdown the illegal drug trafficking. In a recent issue, Duterte strangely took a detour on
ongoing dispute with China in exchange for a billion dollars. After more than four years in power,
President Duterte remained far from what he promised on his candidacy. His approach to
politics and governance received less attention.
There are many issues in the Philippines that affects its economy and is needed to be
addressed. Poverty remained as one of the prevalent issues that the Philippines are facing.
Since Filipinos are poor, they cannot afford to study or even have a food on their table. And the
lack of educations leads them to being uneducated and unemployed. People are full of
themselves, there are individuals who are unreliable. In the Philippines, many cases of
corruption have been proved and are still constant. Instead of addressing the problem, this
affects poor people and the country itself more. Knowing these issues will give ground to the
understanding of its impact in the economy. The leadership is efficient to make an impact to
globalization. Globalization is the process of interaction, exchanges among people and
countries around the world. And not being aware on its impact, Filipinos were threatened by the
widening of the gap between the rich and poor people.
The major problem was the development of the country, Filipinos tend to buy and
patronize foreign products instead of their own. And this has resulted on the continuing
dependency of the Philippines to other countries. The dependency theory leads us to the
understanding that there are gaps between nations. Poor countries were still dependent on
others. And rich countries have the power to dominate poor countries. Philippines has been
dependent on other countries like to the United States. We think that products made by other
countries have a higher quality than ours. When in reality, Filipinos are skilled and
knowledgeable enough to create their own products.
The World System Theory by Immanuel Wallerstein rationalize the existing division of
counties. It was divided into three which is -- the Core, Semi-Periphery, and Periphery. Core are
classified as the “haves” or “social elites”, they benefit the most from the world economy. They
are exploiting other countries for labor and raw materials. They are developed countries with
strong government, intellectual and skilled individuals. Semi-periphery are countries who both
have the classification of core and periphery. They were exploited by other countries (core) but
can also be able to exploit others (periphery). And periphery which is considered to be the who
“have not” or “poor”. These countries lacked the government competency and was being
manipulated by core.
According to Wallerstein, countries who have been exploited then are commonly the
peripheral. And the Philippines were aligned to peripheral, the US have been dominating the
Philippines since then. An example was that Philippines have the raw materials but doesn’t
have enough skills, knowledge and modern technologies to create high quality products.
Consequently, they were constrained to sell or give their materials in a low price to the US. The
United States will create a product and will sell it to us into a higher price. We are in need of
assistance from other countries for us to function. Therefore, Philippines remained to be a weak
country that are being manipulated. And the barrier has been put on not to strive for the
development of the economy. Even so, the Philippines persist to be intact and rigid. Through the
years, it is sluggishly taking its part and can now be considered as semi-periphery who was able
to overpower the past colonials.
The Philippines’ economy was expected to drop due to numerous events happened
these past few months such as strong disasters and 2020 amid Covid pandemic that affected its
growth. In spite of that, the state of the Philippines is slowly rising up from the mud. Little by
little, businesses are trying to bring back their fortunes. According to the authorities, the growth
will be contracted sharply. They have bet on the quick recovery of the economy on 2021. It is
expected to rebound as the outbreak has been constrain.
Philippines will still remain poor unless the government and its people take a step into
addressing their current situation. This brings up the situation that the Philippines are suffering,
the inequality between countries. This theory affects the Philippines and its economy, if the
supremacy of other countries continues, then nothing would be left to the peripheral countries.
Inequality continues to conditioned further resulting into favoring rich countries. There upon
leaving other (poor) countries to be underdeveloped and suffer from its poor situation. The
unjust development of these dominant countries has been established that created an unfair
tactic in the global market. Core countries may still be using their power but periphery countries
must stand on their own. To boost economic growth, the government needs to focus on
alleviating the problem. As a citizen of our country, with strong will and perseverance; we
deserve to be treated right and to receive a good output that will prove the government
competency.

References:
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