SOMEONE in the administration of Ferdinand Marcos was rumored to have declared that the Philippine is a rich country pretending to be poor. It certainly sounds like something Imelda Marcos would have said, but my memory fails me.
At any rate, now comes the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) reporting that 27.9 percent of Filipinos may be classified as poor.
President Noynoy Aquino is said to have bristled at the suggestion that, in spite of all his efforts, there has hardly been a dent in the level of poverty of the citizenry. From 28.8 percent in the first half of 2006 and 28.6 percent in the first half of 2009 and 2011, the figure is reported to have only slightly decreased to 27.9 as of the first half of 2012.
Naturally, the economic “miracle-makers” in the opposition and in the media have been quick to pounce on PNoy and heap all the blame on him, while blithely suggesting magical ways to solve the pesky problem of poverty.
Just listen to what senatorial candidate JV Ejercito had to say: “The NSCB report should prod the government to buckle down to work. The Aquino administration can start by investing heavily in quality education and make it accessible to all.”
Yeah, yeah. Of course, while Ejercito might appear to be suggesting that educating the poverty-stricken masses today will result in the eradication of poverty tomorrow, he actually knows that it will take several years of educating and job-hunting before the newly-educated and eventually-employed poor will finally manage to emerge from their miserable straits.
However, Ejercito’s publicists conveniently forgot to add on that significant detail.
But Ejercito is not the only one who has been remiss in this respect. The information team of Aquino also forgot to clarify that poverty would not be eradicated the day after – or even the year after – their boss announced the impressive improvement of the country’s economy.
And by not clarifying, they inadvertently raised the hopes of the poverty-stricken masses and provided ammunition for the opposition and the media.
Another senatorial hopeful, Jack Enrile, had this to say: “We must intensify efforts to achieve food security, first by giving agriculture the priority it deserves and making enough food available to all at affordable prices.”
Perhaps the younger Enrile can suggest to the older Enrile in the Senate, his dad, that one possible magical solution to the problem of poverty is to distribute among the poor the millions that the office of the Senate President gave as gifts to members of the Senate late last year – and while they’re at it, maybe the honorable members of both houses of Congress can reduce the millions in allowances, per diems and pork barrel funds that find their way into their personal bank accounts. Hopefully, some of that could trickle down (in the words of Senator Alan Peter Cayetano) to the poor.
The same week that the announcement was made that the Philippines’ credit-worthiness had improved, the naysayers began demanding to know why people still didn’t have jobs.
Of course, the naysayers know why. But they’re saying “nay” anyway, “for effect.” It makes them appear “knowledgeable” and “concerned” over the welfare of the masses. But they know darn well that an improvement in credit-worthiness is just one part of the process of creating jobs and improving the lot of the poor. One of the requirements is more direct investments that could translate into businesses and factories that could, in turn, provide jobs.
What the critics and kibitzers are not saying (and which they very well know) is that, putting anti-poverty measures in place, say, today, is like planting rice or fruit trees. Harvest time and fruit picking time will only come later. Hopefully, sooner, with efficient and honest governance.
But it is a fact that there will be no harvest and no fruits to pick unless Aquino and his government begin to plant the seeds. Is Aquino planting those seeds? Even his most virulent critics will have to admit that he has. But Aquino himself has to admit that even his predecessor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, also began planting those seeds during her tenure.
The trouble is, like the New Testament parable of the farmer planting good seeds and an enemy spiking the ground with bad seeds, Arroyo’s sensible economic programs were spoiled by the kleptomaniacs in the palace.
In the case of Aquino, he has had to pull out the weeds while planting good seeds. But there continue to be bad seeds sprouting weeds. And it is doubtful that he will succeed in getting rid of them in the remaining years of his administration. But he can certainly minimize them.
Which brings me to the utter hypocrisy of those who roar and rail over the poverty prevailing in the country while they enjoy immense wealth, or do very little to eradicate the blight that they complain about.
Take those who are opposed to the implementation of the RH Law. They are also among the noisiest in demanding that Aquino and his government should “do something” about the high incidence of poverty in the country. But they go through all kinds of linguistic contortions to make it appear that a runaway population and too many children in a family do not exacerbate poverty.
Hopefully, His Holiness Pope Francis will untangle the strangulated logic of some of our bishops and urge them to meet the government halfway in its efforts to minimize poverty.
In truth, “minimize” is all that they – the Church and the government and all the well-meaning sectors – can reasonably do. They cannot eradicate poverty in their lifetime.
Even the richest country in the world, the United States, has not succeeded in eradicating poverty.
According to the American Community Service Briefs (ACSBR) issued in February this year, for the period 2007-2011, 42.7 million people or 14.3 percent of the US population had income below the poverty level.
The report states:
– By race, the highest national poverty rates were for American Indians and Alaska Natives (27.0 percent) and Blacks or African Americans (25.8 percent)
– Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders had a national poverty rate of 17.6 percent.
– For the Asian population, poverty rates were higher for Vietnamese (14.7 percent) and Koreans (15.0 percent), and lower for Filipinos (5.8 percent).
– Among Hispanics, national poverty rates ranged from a low of 16.2 percent for Cubans to a high of 26.3 percent for Dominicans.
– Nine states had poverty rates of about 30 percent or more for American Indians and Alaska Natives (Arizona, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah).
It should be a source of pride for all of us that in census after census, Filipinos have been found to have the lowest poverty rate in America – much lower than the Whites whose national poverty rate for the 2007-2011 period was 11.6 percent, exactly twice that of Pinoys.
Our national poverty rate is certainly nothing to be happy about. But one wishes that the kibitzers and the government would stop massaging the facts and let the harsh reality out of the box. It will take more than a president and more than one six-year term to get our country out of the hole.
Ask America.
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