The hope in diminishing the poverty in the Philippines free essay sample

Poverty is the shortage of come or resources necessary for a minimum standard of living in a particular society. 2 In short, poverty is the state of being extremely poor or the shortage of resources necessary for a minimum standard of living in a particular society and who is in need of financial needs. Poverty and inequality in the Philippines remains a challenge. In the past four decades, the proportion of households living below the official poverty line has declined slowly and unevenly and poverty reduction has been much slower than in neighboring countries such as China, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Economic growth has gone through boom and bust cycles, and recent episodes of moderate economic expansion have had limited impact on the poor. Great inequality across income brackets, regions, and sectors, as well as unmanaged population growth are considered some of the key factors constraining poverty reduction efforts. 3 Poverty is worse in rural areas (with 53% of families below the poverty line) because economic opportunities have been scarce. But the urban poor (who are 23% of urban families) suffer especially from the low quality of life induced by environmental pollution, congestion, and violence. As long as job growth remains higher in urban areas, migration from rural to urban areas will continually reinforce the ranks of the urban poor. Elderly and female headed households do not suffer high rates of poverty in the Philippines in striking contrast to other developing countries because households tend to be extended with multiple income earners. Poverty still remains a challenge because in the past 4 decades, the proportion of households living below the official poverty line has slower poverty reduction and the percentage of households below the poverty line in rural areas are 53% and the percentage of households below the poverty line in urban areas are 23%. In our neighboring countries, which are China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, we are the slowest of them all and our economic growth has been through boom and bust cycles. It is all because of the economic opportunities have been scarce and job opportunities are limited only. Unmanaged population growth are also the key factors of constraining poverty reduction. The poor everywhere suffer from the declining quality of primary education. In rural areas, access to education and to health is limited severely by poor roads and other physical infrastructure. 4 The poor suffer from declining quality of primary education. Thus, the increasing population of the Philippines is still a problem and many children needs a high quality of education. History of poverty in the Philippines, well as far as I know, when Marcos comes to power in the Philippines, Philippines is the most developed country in South-east Asia. When USA gave independence to the Philippines, they still helped to develop it. Philippines was one of the growing tigers of Asia. But when Marcos declared Martial law, everything went downhill. Investors kept away and devaluation of the Peso. Oil crisis of the 70s also affected this period of time as when US gives support to Israel, the oil producing Arab countries cut down their oil production thus sending a crisis throughout the world. High Inflation and higher commodities prices like now led to protests against Marcos and he himself overspend on the election period in 1969. There is no such thing as exact history of poverty in the Philippines. There are a lot of factors. It can be the centralization of the economy in Manila, Cebu, and Subic/ Clark. Can be the distance and poor infrastructure of the Philippines, can be the corruption that grip the country and hold it to its track. 5 The Philippines was one of the richest country in South-east Asia before the martial law. But when President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, all the investors declined to invest to our country because of the system of President Marcos implemented. Protests and rallies are present in this era and many people got hurt and some died. The economic state of the Philippines in this time was so low that many people experienced poverty. There is a price hike in many items and also in food. Oil crisis is also present in this time and as you can see, Philippines got worse in the time of the declaration of Martial law. An explosion of squatters, in 1948 the government estimated that the squatters in the city numbered about 23,000. In response, President Quirino created a slum clearance committee that developed government land about 8 to 10 kilometers from the city to resettle the squatters. Many of them were resettles in Barrio Bagong Pagasa in Quezon City. Through the 1950s, government tried to further decongest Manila and address the housing shortage by developing a number of housing projects outside the city, principally for government employees. These housing areas continue to be identified by their project numbers to this day, such as project 2 close to the Cubao area, Project 6 in Diliman, and Project 8 along Roosevelt (now Commonwealth) road. Still many resisted the idea of living so far away from the city center. By 1968, government authorities put the number of squatters in the metropolitan area at 767,000. By 1940, the estimate was 1 million, growing to a rate of 12% Meaning that the squatter population doubled every five years. Given that calculation, the squatter population might have numbered about 8 million in the mid-1980s had the emergence of new growth centers outside the metropolis not attracted some people away from the cities. The size of squatter population created a tremendous pressure for housing. The Marcos Government tried to meet the problem head-on. During the 1970s, the ministry of Human Settlements began a low-cost housing program called â€Å"Bagong Lipunan Infrastructure Sites and Services (BLISS). In July 1975, by means of Presidential Decree 757, seven different government agencies and instrumentalities were merged into the National Housing Authority to consolidate all public housing activities. 6 In 1948, the squatters began to explode at 23,000 and the squatters came from the provinces and they don’t have legal houses to live. Now the informal settlers are scattered around the country and sometimes they can be found near the rivers and if there is an open lot, they will find ways to make a house there even if the house is just built with a piece of wood and a roof made of metal. Years later the 23,000 squatter population from 1948 doubled and doubled. Some people who came from the province transferred here to Manila to find jobs. Some of the people who came from provinces had a job and some of it was not able to have a job and instead that they will help the country, they helped the country to become poor. Poor provinces lose their people. From the 1960s to the 1980s, Philippine society was characterized by large scale domestic and external migration. Studies show that the biggest number of migrants, 1. 01 million males and 1. 08 females from 1960 to 1970 alone, were between the ages of 15 and 19. The next largest group of migrants were between ages 20 and 24. The migration pattern reflected economic conditions. From 1960 to 1970, for instance, the economically depressed province of Catanduanes lose a fifth of its population, mostly the young adults, other provinces that lost significant portions. 7 The causes of poverty in the Philippines are the growth of the Philippine population. As in any other developing countries, Philippines population is characterized by a high birth rate and gradually declining mortality rate. International migration, on the other hand, is relatively nil. The growth in population is thus greatly attributed to the natural increase or the excess of birth over deaths. 8 The causes of poverty are low to moderate economic growth for the past 40 years, low growth elasticity of poverty reduction, weakness in employment generation and the quality of joos generated, failure to fully develop agricultural sector, high inflations during crisis periods, high and persistent levels of inequality (incomes and assets) which dampen the positive impacts of economic expansion, and economic crisis, conflicts, natural disasters, and environmental poverty. The causes of poverty are the growth of population, high birth rate, gradually declining mortality rate, low to moderate economic growth for the past 40 years, low growth elasticity of poverty reduction, weakness in employment generation, and failure to fully develop agricultural sector. These are the causes of poverty and we can see that it is the main cause that affects the Filipino people in making their lives harder. Sometimes these people are the one why they are suffering from this kind of adversity. The effects of poverty are serious. Children who grow up in poverty suffer more persistent, frequent, and severe health problems than do the children who grow up under better financial circumstances. Many infants born into poverty have a low birth weight, which is associated with many preventable mental and physical disabilities. Children raised in poverty tend to miss school more often because of illness. These children also have a much higher rate of accidents than do other children, and they are twice as likely to have impaired vision and hearing, iron deficiency anemia, and higher than normal levels of lead in the blood, which can impair brain function. 10 Children are affected by poverty also because the parents of the children living in poverty cannot afford to give the child full nutrition and sometimes the child in the mother’s womb dies or caused by miscarriages. Hunger, appetite (impulse, drive) for food, often referring also to the mass of uneasy sensations from the gut and particularly from hunger contractions in the stomach, which accompany the appetite also used to describe sexual appetite. 11 The desire or need especially very great, for food. 12 Homelessness, or extreme poverty carries with it a particularly strong set of risks for families, especially children. Compared to children living in poverty but having homes, homeless children are less likely to receive proper nutrition and immunization. Hence, they experience more health problems. Homeless women experience higher rates of low birth weight babies, miscarriages, and infant mortality, probably due to not having access to adequate pre-natal care for their babies. Homeless families experience even greater life stress than other families, including increased disruption in work, school, family relationships, and friendships. 13 As we can see, when we pass by the streets we can see homeless people loitering around and sometimes they are asking for alms. These people have health problems and they have improper nutrition and there are discrepancies between a person living below the poverty line and person living outside the poverty line. The person living below the poverty line doesn’t have educational knowledge while the other person has. Person living below the poverty line is malnourished while the other is fully nourished with nutrients. High population growth, according to Congressman Edcel Lagman said that the population growth rate is too high. At an estimated 95 million, the Philippines is the 12th most populous country among the more than 200 countries in the world. It would increase to 100 million by 2015. There must be more effective methods to reduce our high 1. 9% population growth rate. UP Professor Ernesto Pernia says Thailand has 0. 6% growth rate while Indonesia has 0. 8% growth rate. It’s time to vote on the RH bill he said. 14 Unemployment, poverty reduction has not kept up with GDP growth rates, largely due to high unemployment rate, high inflation rate and wide income inequality. The official rate of unemployment for 2012 in the Philippines was 6. 8%. From 2000 to 2009, the economy of the Philippines grew by 3. 2% on average annually, which was on par with the economic performance of its neighbors. However, this recent growth did not translate into more jobs. Unemployment in the Philippines has been high in comparison to its neighbors, at around 7. 5% to 8. 0% since 2006. 15 Rapid Population Growth, given that the population of the Philippines is increasing at a rapid rate of 2.36% per year, this can be translated as an increase of more than 5,000 people daily in a country that already has an increase of more than four million poor people since 1985. In 1985, the absolute number of people living in poverty was 26. 5 million. This increased to 30. 4 million in 2000 and from 2006 to 2009, increased by almost 970,000 Filipinos from 22. 2 million to 23. 1 million. As the Philippines has financially limited resources and high poverty rate, the rapid increase in population has become a problem because there is insufficient resources to support the population, which leaves much fewer resources to improve the economy. From 2003 to 2006, even though the Philippines experienced above-average economic growth, the poverty incidence increased as a result of its population growth rate. 16 Mr. Michael Orcullo, a social worker of Municipal Social Welfare Office of Cainta and working for almost a year and assigned in special case unit handling different cases like adoption, street children and those cases who are related to children. According to Mr. Orcullo, people can cope poverty through identifying what they have and appreciating their skills and develop their abilities. Mr.Orcullo also told that he can help an individual to reduce the growth of poverty by increasing their skills and abilities through facilitating their skills and giving more information or education. Mr. Orcullo defines poverty in the Philippine context and he said that poverty is when the people are powerless and he also shared something about what act or program do the government implemented and the pogram of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) was the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or (4Ps) to help the poor people. He also answered how economic crisis affect the poor people and he said that economic crisis can affect the poor people if the demand gets high, the poor people cannot avail the basic needs like clothes, rice, food, transportation etc†¦17 As we can see, some of the people cannot see what the government is doing for the people who are below the poverty line and they can only see all the bad things that they are doing like corruption. The government has this program Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) which helps the poor Filipino people to cope with poverty. The government is giving them cash for them to have a living or to make a business that will suffice their financial needs. The government wanted them to make use of their talents and abilities and improve it. There’s a periodical about the joblessness rate of the Philippines and it is from the Philippine Star. It says that the increase in the SWS joblessness rate in the last quarter of last year from 21. 7 percent in September 2013 to 27. 5 percent in December 2013 was reported to have sparked a full Cabinet meeting that took more than five hours. Last Monday, Economic Planning Secretary Arsi Balisacan called a press conference where he admitted that â€Å"growth is not denting poverty. † High unemployment and poverty incidence, he admitted, will remain a big challenge for the government in the next 10 years or so even amid steady growth. Balisacan didn’t make a big thing of what he called a modest reduction of poverty incidence since 2009 that is declining from 27 to 25 percent. Of course years of bad economic management and even squandered growth opportunities are responsible for our stubborn poverty situation. But past administrations are quick to resort to technicalities to highlight whatever little positive result they can squeeze out from the numbers. Indeed, it would have been easy for Sec Balisacan to say that journalists are being myopic for highlighting the single-quarter increase in joblessness. Arsi could have taken journalists like myself to task for failing to notice that the full-year data reveals a FALL in the SWS average from 2012 to 2013 as Malacanang apologists have always done. Arsi could have even castigated newspaper headline writers for disregarding the fact that the 21.7 was the lowest quarterly percentage ever since December 2011. Averaging over four quarters, the Joblessness percentage of the full year 2013 was 25. 2; this was 3. 6 points below the 28. 8 in the full year 2012. Hooray! 3. 6 points below! But Sec Arsi knew better. He has been in government long enough to realize that journalists look at the big picture when reporting on statistics. We look at the numbers and see a total picture, not the small differences here and there the way social scientists with PhDs would. I have an article about the 4Ps or the â€Å"Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program† from the Manila Bulletin. Butuan City, the Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman has given assurances the anti-poverty alleviation program of the Aquino Administration will continue. She was referring to the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps, the flagship poverty alleviation program of the government that focuses on the poorest of the poor people, especially those in far-flung village communities. The department is implementing Pantawid Pamilya sets 6 and 7 throughout the country. In the Caraga region alone, registered 4Ps households have already reached 174,101. To date, of the total households, 162,346 are covered by the regular Pantawid Pamilya program while 11,665 are covered by the Modified Conditional Cash Transfer program. â€Å"Magtuloy tuloy itong programa natin, and I ask you (social workers) to step up your good performance. † Said Secretary Soliman before the more than 700 rank –and-file of the DSWD Caraga region 13 led by Regional Director Dr. Mindanao B. Brigoli at Butuan City’s resort, hotel and convention center on Thursday. The DSWD secretary lauded the exemplary performance of the DSWD-13. This poverty alleviation program implemented by the DSWD also benefited 14,184 indigenous people at various ethnic tribes in the Caraga region. Of the total number of households, 73% or 10,309 households belong to the Manobo tribe. 19 So in conclusion, I therefore conclude that poverty in the Philippines is very perceptible because we can easily see people loitering in the streets and sometimes beside the highways. We can see them sitting and asking for alms. Homelessness is the main effect of poverty because when poverty strikes, it will take away all your wealth and also your shelter. In my own definition of poverty, poverty is the state where you can’t buy any basic needs that you need like food, clothes, education, and shelter or it refers to the condition of not having means to afford human needs such as good nutrition, health care, clean water, and a physically fit body. Poverty is the main problem of the Philippines because the percentage of poverty is rising up and the reduction of poverty is so low. The informal settlers are also the problem in this case because some informal settlers are living in creeks and rivers and they are dumping their toxic wastes in the rivers nearby thats why water pollution is happening. The example of this is the Pasig River that is full of toxic wastes made by the informal settlers near the river. They don’t even know what is the proper waste management. The problem to the Filipinos is that they are the one who are doing the wrong things but yet they are the one who gets angry. The government is forcing them to transfer to a safer and cleaner place but yet they don’t want to evacuate and these informal settlers are so hard-headed. I could say that if everyone has a job, non would suffer from hunger because the people has a job to live and to buy their basic needs and their wants. But because of the high unemployment rate, many people suffer from hunger and that’s why poverty is rampant.