Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
WHILE everyone here in the Philippines was quite understandably focused on our own tumultuous election on Monday, the nation of Sri Lanka was tearing itself apart. The drama happening there is worth paying attention to because of some disturbing similarities, or at least potential similarities, between the Sri Lankan situation and that of the Philippines.
Sri Lanka's crisis was tipped into serious upheaval by the Covid-19 pandemic, but in reality the pressure has been building for several years. The pandemic virtually wiped out revenues from tourism and remittances, both of which are even bigger contributors to the Sri Lankan economy than they are here in the Philippines. This starved the country of badly needed foreign currency to pay off its ballooning debt — much of it to China under less than favorable terms — and forced the government to ban a large number of imports.
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