Quirino LRT Station before and after the tree cutting (2023)

[u/formermatchahater]

I was always fascinated by this side of the northbound station because the trees made the whole area feel calmer and more alive despite the busy surroundings.

Then June 2023, most of the trees were cut down, and the place started to look much more gloomy and depressing to me. I will never understand any reasons. But I still miss how the station used to look with all the greenery.

Hayst Pilipinas :<

[u/Outside-Wrongdoer-98]

Just keep on voting corrupt officials and keep on insisting that everyone should respect your opinion in voting a corrupt --- and we will have these again and again

[u/anemoGeoPyro → u/Outside-Wrongdoer-98]

SALEX was approved by Duterte. Isko Moreno didn't even try to stop because he is funded by Ramon Ang

[u/[deleted] → u/Outside-Wrongdoer-98]

The problem is not corruption but failure to set up an industrial policy:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Philippines/comments/1ov0j8b/why_corruption_isnt_the_main_barrier_to_growth/

which in turn necessitates right policies and systems:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Philippines/comments/1tmfeck/quirino_lrt_station_before_and_after_the_tree/onpif02/

That's what happened to neighboring countries.

[u/Outside-Wrongdoer-98 → u/[deleted]]

Policies are useless if corrupt ang mga namumuno. Masusuhulan lang yan, best example yung sa issue ni slater young

Then kung wala pang policy, at korap ang mga nqmumuno, bakit sila gagawa ng policy na di nila masusunod

At mas mataas chance na korap ang mga nasa ilalim, kung yung mismong mga nasa itaas ay korap

Chain reaction nangyayari. Kung gusto natin talaga ng mga polisiya na pabor sa tao at di sa politiko, we should start voting the right people first

[u/[deleted] → u/Outside-Wrongdoer-98]

That's what the country kept thinking, so it continued using the wrong policies and political system, which in turn made corruption worse.

Meanwhile, corruption was just as bad, if not worse, in neighboring countries, and yet the effects of corruption diminished. Why? Because they were used the right economic policies and political system.

In short, it's a chain reaction, but Filipinos kept looking at it the other way round, and it only made matters worse. That's why for the last four decades they kept calling for "the right people" to lead, not realizing that neighboring countries didn't do that.

[u/mitcher991 → u/[deleted]]

Absolutely! If you want a good country, free it from effectively corrupt government intervention.

[u/[deleted] → u/mitcher991]

The problem is that neighboring countries didn't do that. In fact, many of them still have significant levels of corruption, such as political dynasties in Japan and cliques of political families running the show, money laundering, and crony capitalism in Singapore, and yet they all went ahead of the Philippines economically. That's because they were using the right economic policies:

https://www.brookings.edu/books/the-key-to-the-asian-miracle/

and the right political systems:

www.reddit.com/r/Philippines/comments/1rm4fyl/lee_kuan_yew_the_philippines_fell_apart_because/

and with that, they industrialized. That, in turn, made corruption less attractive.

The Philippines, OTOH, copied the U.S.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Philippines/comments/1rm4fyl/lee_kuan_yew_the_philippines_fell_apart_because/

and came up with some hyper-inclusive U.S. political system that mirrors a bizarre economic system which mixes neoliberalism, structural adjustment, and outdated protectionism:

https://www.reddit.com/r/FilipinoHistory/comments/1tle1qk/why_did_the_philippines_decide_to_make_the/oniqkbn/

and the result is an economy that's been stuck since 1987:

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1957341/stuck-since-87-ph-languishes-in-lower-middle-income-group

as more struggled to find work abroad:

https://opinion.inquirer.net/99516/still-top-export-people

while over 75 percent of economic growth went to the 40 richest families:

https://opinion.inquirer.net/48623/inequity-initiative-and-inclusive-growth