Would the Philippines’ poverty reduction in progress? Yes, through the President Rodrigo Duterte’s plans of actions!
“Filipinos living below the poverty line were estimated at 21% of the population in the first half of 2018 compared with 27.6% in the same period of 2015′, Philippine Statistic authority said in the report!
Hold on to more facts on the reduction of the Filipino poverty. Just some tossings of the realities about the state of the Philippines.
The Philippines is considered a third world country ? The answer is a big bold YES!, a far cry compared from other Asian neighboring countries like Vietnam and Thailand
Look at the hard fact statistics focusing on the sad state of poverty in the Philippines. According to the report, extreme poverty affects 19.2% of the population, 18.4 million people, based on the international poverty life of $1.25 a day.And most of the poor live in the rural areas and work in the agriculture sectors, mainly farming and fishing!
And what are the causes of poverty in the Philippines? There are many causes of poverty in the country and these include the low to moderate economic growth for the past 40 years…YES, FOR THE PAST 40 years! To name a few, the recurrent exposure to the risks, such a economic crises, conflict, natural disasters, over-population, “environmental poverty” (poor utilization of the natural resources) and ; a wide gap of income and wealth, and to be blunt in condemnation, the proverbial corruption in the various sectors of the society, from the elected and appointed officials (executive, legislative and judicial), to the media and to the police forces!
When a discussion on the emergence of Filipino poverty, one has to find ways to reason out why this social problem has not be addressed for more than 40 years; or one would say, that the poverty problem has been in our midst since the time when the Filipinos were removed from the shackle of poverty since time immemorial.
The country is an agricultural country, and to the richest countries, the agricultural revolution has the USA and Canada, for example, to become an industrialized countries. And why can’t the Philippines attain such noble title?
Dysfunction governance leads to mismanagement of the natural resources. Government planners concentrated the growth in Manila and other provinces are forgotten and hardly progressed. As a matter of fact, the declining rate of poverty in the Philippines is only a barely 0,9% compared with China with a declining rate of 2.4% per year!
In the nutshell, poverty reduction has not kept with GDP growth rates, due to high employment rate, high inflation rate and wide income inequality (financial inquity- the poor become poorer and the rich become richer (Find out who the billionaires in the Country..and if you find out, you might swallow your own vomit!).
And the population growth rate is alarming! 2.36% per year, adding more 5,000 Filipinos every year and times 365 days? Wow!
The former administration had a great plantilla to reduce poverty, some had been instituted but because the very core of the society is sick and added to this is the dysfunction operations of many departments, his plans were derailed.
Do we need a superhuman to govern?
No and no such a superhuman exists, only in the minds of the fiction writers!
The election of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has shakened and disturbed leading to many counter-critics that a mere Mayor of Davao would become the president. And because Philippine politics is polarized (most of the time pulverized), competition after election heated up and critics from the status quo, from the media and from the members of the Imperial Manila have risen to find faults of the current administration.
Currently, there is a sustained economic growth and critical and broad-based reforms and investments that have translated to employment generation and social protection.
As ABS-CBN reports: “The proportion of Filipinos living below poverty line fell to 16.1% from the 22.2% in 2015!
Are we in the road to reduce poverty line?
Examine the Duterte’s plan in the next 3 years and he made promises that before his term ends, Filipinos can claim about the quality of their lives.
And ask the critics and the opposition parties, they paint a sad state of the future; and add a man-made calculation that all what Durerte has been doing, like his “Builld, Build, Build” plans would not make a dent on poverty reduction?: And who will effect the reduction?
Remember, the Philippines is so rich in natural and human resources and we need Duterte to realize how to utilize these resources!
Urgency is to halt hunger, and this is the order of the day.
And on hunger, I am inspired by what St. Agustine writes: “Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others?
And because family dynasty is cancerous in the Philippines, many families are afflicted with it…more families in politics, ten times the money they get.”
And what Dwight Eisenhower writes on hunger: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies a final sense of theft from those who hunger..”
And my version, pardon my pun: “Every money taken by the corrupt elected and appointed officials signifies a final sense of theft from those kababayans who hunger.”
And the 25% of poor people of the Philippine are robbed in a broad daylight!
