Pandemic made the poor poorer and the rich richer, 1

BY FR. SHAY CULLEN 

THE COVID pandemic caused great harm and the rich became richer while the poor became poorer and an additional 4.27 million Filipinos fell into extreme poverty like Maria Mahirap, one of the poorest persons in the Philippines. There are hundreds of thousands of people like her that literally have nothing in this world, no possessions, no money, no family. We that have should count our blessings. 

Maria, like hundreds of thousands of children today, was a victim of child sexual abuse. She lived on the streets and was exploited by human traffickers. Maria became a sexually abused and trafficked child and then an exploited woman by foreign and local sex tourists. With nothing more than a dirty, smelly, ragged dress she lost hope and then her mind. She was brought to the mental hospital in Mariveles, Bataan.

There are about 19 million women, children, and men in the Philippines in extreme poverty. That means eating pag-pag, that is, one meal a day of re-cooked left-overs from the restaurant garbage bags, a welcome gift from the well-fed rich. If they are more lucky, they can afford to eat a cup of cheap rice with salt and nothing else.

This is the situation of millions of the very poor in the Philippines, a proud nation of 110 million people with 26.1 million of them below the poverty line, owning few possessions, while one percent of the population are super rich owning about 45 percent of the wealth. That is nothing to be proud of and the world knows it even if the rich don’t care. 

The super-rich tycoons are just one percent of the population. They rule, exploit, manage and manipulate the permanent hungry pag-pag eaters so that they willingly sell their vote for 3,000 pesos in every election and live in paradise for two days. The one percent rich live in luxury all their lives. They attend thanksgiving Masses to celebrate their trickery unwittingly blessed by the church. 

Millions of unfortunate Filipinos are caught up in a grossly immoral, disgustingly unjust system by which the super-rich live in luxury as they manipulate and exploit the hunger of the poor to take political power, all the while throwing scraps to the sick and dying lying in the slums under the shadow of their towering condos. 

In the first quarter of 2021, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) counted 26.1 million Filipinos living in “relative” poverty, those without property, living in shacks and shanties, and eating just a little more than pag-pag. That is an increase of 23.7 percent over the previous years since 2018, an increase of 3.9 million of hungry Filipinos, mostly malnourished women and stunted, under-educated children. They survive with unpayable debts. An additional 4.74 million Filipinos fell into extreme poverty during the pandemic. 

In 2019, there were 15 Filipino billionaires, US dollars, and there will be 17billionaires by the year 2024 according to a Statista Research Department report as of November 2021. There are no less than 569 ultra-super rich Filipinos, each worth no less than 30 million US dollars.

Between them and their combined trillions of US dollars, mostly made on the Philippine economy, they could change the lives of the 22.26 million starving Filipinos. However, besides throwing scraps to the poor, it seems they are hell-bent on making more riches for themselves.

The system is rigged by the rich. They are the political power behind the presidential throne. With their great wealth, they get themselves and their relatives and friends elected to congress and others appointed to high government departments across the land. With economic and political power, they get huge loans which the people must pay back by taxation. The super-rich are the de facto rulers of the Philippines. (To be continued)/PN