Blog Action Day: Poverty is lack of governmental vision

There are four million Filipino families who are now victims of a worsening economy. With some 250,000 Filipinos here and abroad expected to lose their jobs due to the global recession, we expect this 4 million figure to further soar. Government says preparations are underway to assist those who will go back here. Truly ironic since the very reason why these Pinoys went abroad in the first place is the fact that they really found nothing to do here.

Government plans to train expatriated Pinoys to setup their own businesses. Entrepreneurship is the key against poverty, government says. But this is just for OFWs. How about those who stayed behind? Will government help them as well?

For those who stayed here, government plans to just give them subsidies. By November, however, those 500 peso per family subsidies are to be stopped. Lack of funds, government says. How will they survive?

The problem with us is we have a government that lacks a vision. Government should have been planning for contingencies. Government should have been thinking about expanding credit markets to accommodate those who want to setup their own businesses.

Absence of Hope leads to child-related violence in RP

ABS-CBN's TV Patrol recently featured a story of a young baby girl tortured by her own uncle. The uncle was supposed to take care of the girl, left by her mother who was reportedly working abroad. The hapless girl suffered tremendous beatings, sustained bruises, burns and wounds all over her young body; even had her nails pulled out by her uncle. In an interview, the uncle said that he "usually" beat the girl up, because they don't have anything to eat and also frustrated because the baby pisses and defecate all over.

Earlier, reports show a mother charged for throwing her young kid in the waste basket. Another report had it that a young mother killed her three kids by poisoning them inside their shanty home in Quezon. Reason for these two cases: they have nothing to feed their kids, so it's better to just throw them like trash or kill them.

These cases, say some Philippine sociologists, are signs of rising frustration and hopelessness pervading among impoverished Filipino families. Devoid of any outlet to express themselves, poor Filipinos are resorting to violence, and kids are getting the bitter end of it. Children have become victims of this vicious system; families are finding it extremely hard to cope with rising food prices.

Government should do something about it. More than just giving out subsidies, which I learned government had momentarily stopped due to lack of adequate funds, the DSWD should take the lead in giving trauma sessions to these impoverished families. Poverty is truly traumatic. Imagine the trauma these families encounter everyday, thinking where to find that precious 50 or 100 pesos just to buy a kilo of rice and some form of viand.

More importantly,what do we do about it?

It would help if we unite, all of us, and bring some hope to our poor brothers and sisters. It is not the lack of money that pushes these families to violence. No. It is the lack or absence of hope, a sense of senselessness of existence, the very thinking that there's nothing to scrape from the bottom of the barrel and no one to ask for help. The people had lost all hope and trust. The very institutions of government that are supposed to help them have failed them repeatedly.

The solution is not subsidizing their food. No. That is just short-term. What would really help is for Filipinos to unite and inspire other Filipinos to work for real change. The first step is to at least oust the very cause of our collective misery. Oust the poster girl of this corrupt and decrepit system and work for the establishment of a government that inspires rather than oppresses. It is time for another EDSA, the real EDSA for the Filipino People, not an EDSA for the elite.