Half of us feel poor while 4 million FAMILIES go hungry every single day

What Noynoy? You don't
believe that we're going
hungry because you allow these
oil price hikes

Four million families go hungry at least once a week here in the Philippines. The average Filipino family consists of at least five people. So, there are as many as twenty million Filipinos going hungry every single day.


Congratulations to the new administration for bringing so much misery to our fellow Filipinos. 


More than half of the population says they're poor. They're poor because they can't enjoy the purchasing power of the Peso. They get a measly salary every single month and all these goes to food, transportation and some, house rent. People have no other means to buy anything, anymore. see National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) stats for more details. 


Of course, President Noynoy Aquino does not believe the SWS survey. Maybe they erred, he says, because they only asked 1,200 respondents. 


Mr. President, you must be extremely thankful that only 1,200 Filipinos were surveyed. Had SWS widened their survey to 2,800 respondents (this will cover 99% of the current Philippine population), this figure would have been higher or larger. 


President Aquino, who remains busy "up there", tinkering with the latest gadgets and getting his adrenalin up with that Porsche, thinks there's something terribly wrong with what SWS reported.


'There's so much food inside Malacanang, and people outside are getting hungry? That is not right. There is something wrong with SWS. "


The president was obviously referring to that 400,000 people who were given "Pantawid gutom" program. Every single beneficiary gets 500 pesos or so from the fund.


400,000, in the minds of Pnoy, is a lot. It probably represents twenty percent of the number of people going hungry every single day. 


What Noynoy should be extremely concerned about is the rising pessimism among Filipinos affected by the rising oil price hikes, increasing prices of basic commodities and the spike in transportation costs.


These things are avoidable, if we have a pro-active government. It seems though, that we are blessed by an administration who (1) does not really have a grasp of Philippine reality and (2) does not know what to do anymore. 


Read this: see link

The SWS noted that the Filipinos' "personal optimism" was down slightly from its June rating of "+36," when optimists comprised 41% of those surveyed, and pessimists, 5%.
"Net personal optimism has been over +20 in the past five quarters, beginning September 2009. Prior to June 2010, net economic optimism had been double-digit negatives in 30 out of 46 surveys since September 1998," SWS said.
The survey results, published in SWS' media partner BusinessWorld on Thursday, said 38% expect their personal quality of life to improve in the next 12 months.
Only 6% of the 1,200 adults interviewed in the survey in September said otherwise, bringing "very high" net personal optimism to +32.
On the subject of the economy as a whole, 39% said they expected it to improve while 9% claimed it would worsen.
Net economic optimism as of September was +29, again "very high," but down from June’s record of +39 (45% "better" and 6% "worse").
Asked to look back a year, 27% said their lives were now worse ("losers") while 25% declared it had gotten better ("gainers"), for a "fair" net gainers-losers score of -2, similar to the -6 recorded three months earlier.
For net personal optimism, the SWS classes scores of +30 and above as "very high." Those in the +20 to +29 range are "high" -- beyond that normally expected or above the category containing the median and the mode (+10 to +19, tagged as "fair").
For net economic optimism and net gainers-losers, the SWS puts the most common answers, the median and the modal, in the "low" and "very low" categories

Of course, this administration would just brush this aside and say that people will definitely not militate in the streets. Filipinos are a patient lot, like the carabao. Fact is, Pinoys are masochists, they love challenges. They loved to be punished by high prices from multinational companies and they love getting a lower pay than what the rest of the world gets. 

Ah, this administration is misreading the current socio-political situation. It thinks that since it has a critical collaboration with cause-oriented groups, no one will lead the people in getting justice. 

Akbayan and Bayanmuna have been compromised. Who else will lead the militancy? No one?

Ah, that's the thing. When you don't have the correct analysis of the lay of the land, you put yourself in great risk. This administration does not know that.