What has kept our people in poverty?

With school finally opened for this year, we seem to be stuck in the same school opening problems, like lack of classrooms, chairs, teachers, or simply lack of ideas from the Department of Education. Perhaps this annual incident has literally doomed the nation into being in constant poverty. Because of this very common situation, The Philippine STAR last Sunday came up with an editorial entitled "Threatened children" which I will reprint so we can discuss our problems with poverty.

"The Philippines continues to be one of the best performing economies in the region, sustaining growth figures and keeping its investment-grade credit rating. At the same time, however, there are persistent indicators that the benefits of growth are not being felt in the bottom rungs of society, with poverty incidence still high despite cash transfers and other mitigation measures.

"The latest indicator is the Philippines' fall by eight notches in an annual study on the best and worst countries for children to grow up in, from 96th place last year to 104th among 175 economies. The 2018 End of Childhood Index was drawn up by international advocacy group Save the Children. Rankings are based on how threatened children are as a result of poor health, malnutrition, exclusion from education, extreme violence, child labor, child marriage and early pregnancy. The Philippines performed poorly in terms of teenage childbearing, under-five mortality and severe malnutrition, with stunting afflicting one in three children below five years old, according to the report.

"Around the world, approximately 153 million children live in areas where their welfare is threatened by poverty combined with violence and strong discrimination against girls, according to the report. It showed that disease and malnutrition, including inadequate access to health care, were responsible for 20 times more children's deaths than violence in conflict zones.

"Among the developing countries in Southeast Asia, Thailand ranked higher than the Philippines, placing 85th while Vietnam ranked 96th. Advanced economies led the list of countries where children enjoy the best protection, with Singapore placing first followed by Slovenia and Norway. Save the Children released the research ahead of International Children's Day on June 1. Its title, "The Many Faces of Exclusion," indicates the challenges for the Philippines in making its much touted economic growth inclusive."

This tells us that despite what President Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte has done for our people, we are not really solving problems that cause poverty, which is one of the main reasons why Filipinos leave our nation to continue our diaspora. I certainly hope President Duterte gets to read that editorial so he can still adjust his policies regarding our educational system, which as this editorial suggests, our present educational system has not improved our plan to get rid of our culture of poverty.

This was a question raised to me by my good friend Rick Ramos who usually writes commentaries whether or not our educational system (don't forget that most people believe that education is the key to solving our poverty problems) has helped our nation veer our people from the ravages of poverty. Apparently our educational system has not brought the nation from the ugly circle of poverty. Yes, while we have seen wonderful examples the majority of our people continue to live within the crisis of poverty!

So what's in store for the future of our children? In all honesty, we personally believe that if there is any chance for Filipinos to step away from the clutches of poverty, it is under the leadership of President Duterte. But it is the corrupt career government officials and worse, our elected politicians, who apparently use the poverty of our people as their launch pad for an emerging political ambition, and use the poverty of our people as their key to political leadership.

But in the end, these political leaders end up with decades-long political careers, while the population remains stagnated in their misery being in poverty for years. This is why we must use the dreams of President Duterte to implement a new charter by introducing a federal form of government with a real political reform, disallowing political butterflies from succeeding and continuing to stay in power even if they lost their political patrons. So we shall continue writing about this in the years to come.