MANILA, Philippines - Newspaper accounts the other day, indicated with certain excitement the elation expressed by President Benigno C. Aquino III over the expected results of his first foreign travel as head of state and government. At the first opportunity while still in the United States, President Aquino announced, he would be bringing home about P123.2-billion worth in "fresh investments and thousands of jobs waiting for Filipinos..." That is pure optimism, as if you didn't know. Practically, all the Presidents in the past before him, who went abroad to meet the co-called captains of international industries, had received categorical commitments of fresh investments in the country, but except for some, most remained hindered and badly served. Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama in his speech at the United Nations Summit emphasized what he called "result-based approach" to foreign aid, in place of simply throwing away money at development problems of poor and corrupt countries.
"Let's move beyond the old, narrow debates over how much money we're spending and let's instead focus on results - whether we're actually making improvement in people's lives," the US leader declared. But it is possible that Mr. Aquino has reason of his own to be optimistic over the proposals he received from his meetings with various overseas companies.
They were business prospects and the President is counting on the employment they could generate in addition to the taxes they would be contributing to the public treasury. We surely understand Mr. Aquino's elation over the favorable developments in his trip but experience has taught us not to be carried away by all those hoopla. Mostly, they are part of the rules of conduct and politesse common in the ways of international intercourse, as if you didn't know. But that's not the straight path that he so frequently talks about. * * * "But these men deride whatever they do not know by instinct like the dumb beasts become for them a source of destruction."
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