Poverty remains a big problem

IN a survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) last September 23-27, 47 percent of the respondents said they consider their families poor. It was three points higher than the 44 percent in the previous survey in June. The 47 percent who deemed their families poor in September were described by SWS as 10.9 million families – 800,000 more families than in June.

With our present state of underdevelopment, we must accept that many of our people remain poor to this day. The survey merely provided us a figure – 10.9 families. And these families make up 47 percent of the people in our country.

When the nation voted decisively for change in the last election, this poverty in the country was the biggest factor in that call for change. There were other factors, of course. Many wanted change from the regime of corruption that they saw in government. Others wanted change from the environment of crime and disorder in their communities.

Their hopes were raised by respectable increases in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which measures the total production of the nation, but somehow these GDP increases remained up in the higher levels of the economy. Not much was trickling down to the lower levels.

The new administration has dealt a massive blow to one problem of the nation – the drugs menace. It has been able to stop an attempt of separatists, supported by the international Islamic State movement, to set up a regional “caliphate” in Mindanao. It is now moving to correct what President Duterte has called a “historic injustice” to the Moro people by giving them greater autonomy.

These are all important moves that have been taken by the government. But the SWS Survey should remind all of us that the one problem that hounds the lives of ordinary Filipinos – poverty – is still around. It has in fact worsened in the last quarter – from 10.1 to 10.9 million families.

The government has plans for these poor families. The projected massive infrastructure program of the government in the next few years will not only build needed infrastructures for the economy; it will also provide jobs for hundreds of thousands whose families are among the 47 percent who rated themselves poor in the SWS survey.

If only for these millions of people, we hope the problem of disagreement on the National Budget for 2018 between the House of Representatives and the Senate will be amicably and justly resolved in Congress. We cannot go back to the old budget which would have to be used if our legislators cannot reach agreement.

Many programs will begin in 2018 with funds under the new budget. The September SWS Survey should be in the minds of our officials as they carry out its many programs, most especially the ones that will help the millions of families that told the SWS – admitted – that they were poor.