BY FR. SHAY CULLEN
THE YEAR 2023 is upon us and while many wish there will be a positive change for most Filipinos, sadly it will not be so as the rich continue to grow immensely richer and the poor poorer, according to a poverty survey of more than 15 million Filipinos carried out by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). The strong resilience of the Filipino character will continue to help them endure the growing hardship. As the cost of survival increases, poverty grows.
This is validated by the most recent survey carried out by the government itself. According to the survey in 2022, there were over 5.6 million Filipino families living in dire poverty. Considering the size of the average Filipino family of six persons, this translates to at least 33 million Filipinos living in perennial poverty with little hope for a brighter, better 2023. This they say is almost 30 percent of the 111 million total Philippine Population. This is to say that three out of every 10 Filipinos are poor and hungry.
The wealthy that are about .01 percent of the population control 46 percent of the total wealth of the Philippines, some analysts say. One cannot be sure since much wealth of the elite is hidden here and abroad and assets are understated and tax payments are close to zero. The middle-class business people and the workers pay the taxes.
However, in 2020 the Philippine government was able to get a loan of US$600 million from the World Bank to help the poor during the pandemic. Iit was to be spent on the Conditional Cash Transfer or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or the Four P’s that would ease hunger. There is hardly any evidence that the poor benefited much due to creative accounting or none at all. The money was also earmarked to help the DSWD to go digital and address poverty more effectively.
This serious inequality in the Philippines has roots in history due to the historical political system inherited from the Spanish and the American colonial era when smart families serving the powerful people that then ruled won favor with the authorities. They were related to each other through marriage- a medieval strategy to consolidate power- and they gained political positions which they converted to family groups. They in turn (with heroic exceptions) bought, bribed and bullied their way into positions of political power over the past generations.
This group of smart political families used their positions in congress and local governments to enrich themselves by giving themselves public land and permits for logging, media control, plantations, mining, fishing and more. They formed business monopolies and above all continued to cleverly and brilliantly interlock and cooperate with each other so as to maneuver and manipulate the common Filipino.
The majority of ordinary, kind, ever-trusting but un-reflective Filipinos support a political system that keeps them in poverty while supplying cheap labor for the industries of the elite and multinational partners. (To be continued)/PN
