Dėjá vu?
In 1992, when I was a staff member at the newly-established Office of the President-Mindanao, we crunched some numbers and concluded that Mindanao wallowed in negative economic growth at minus 0.48 percent. Although that figure would climb steadily to 4.12 percent by 1995, midway through Fidel Ramos’s presidency, that 1992 backwater fact was telling.
For one, it compared with the national figure—0.4 percent—a similarly dismal reality. For another, it dovetailed a story of how a nation clawed its way out of the abysmal hole of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s (FM) martial law years.