By Henry Gutierrez 

This year, Forbes Magazine announced that the 10 richest Filipinos on the average are worth P310.6 billion each. If they were to stop doing business and merely invest all this money in mutual funds or bonds (]a very conservative form of investment), each would fetch approximately P12.4 billion a year in profits or a monthly income of P1.03 billion. That is the potential earning of a family headed by one of the ten richest men in our country.

On the other hand, based on government statistics for the first semester of 2023, three million Filipino families subsist on a budget of P12,030 a month. Translated into individual numbers, this means about 15 million Filipinos (average number in a family is pegged at 5) scratch and claw for their existence with a budget of P80 a day while 50 have money coming out of their ears at close to P7M a day. What a disparity! Totally mind-boggling!

This statistic brings to mind so many questions. How did we get into a situation like this? How did this gap between the rich and the poor get so extensive? The one that really bothers me though is this. Why can’t these rich people just cash in all their assets and place all their money on investments the way I mentioned it? Surely earning P1.03 billion a month and having a budget of almost P35 million a day for expenditures are more than enough.

The most likely answers are the sins of pride and greed. They wish to be seen at the top of society, hoping to gain the admiration and respect that they so crave for. They want to be the top honcho. And to achieve this, they become insatiable. They become greedy, acquiring as much as they can, even way beyond their needs. The wealth that could have been distributed among many are instead cornered by a few. What God has meant for all of us to share, they have taken upon themselves to stash away for their own advantage.

If you have the opportunity, go to a park. Sit down on a bench and start feeding the birds. Notice how they do not fight over the seeds you throw at them. Notice how each of them flies away once it has had its fill. And these birds are not as intelligent as we are. We are supposed to know and think better than they. But our behavior belies that. We behave worse than the animals. No wonder we can never have peace. What a pity!

Being called a birdbrain in our society is regarded as an insult. But with what I see, with how people behave, I am starting to have my doubts. Maybe we are better off being like these birds.

(A contributed opinion piece from a retired marketing executive of PepsiCo in Manila.)