With this threshold, a family of five needs a regular income of P65,565 ($1,279.07) yearly or P5,464 ($106.59) monthly to meet essential needs. This translates to a P1,092 ($21.30) monthly income or a P36 ($0.70) daily income for every person.

For the food budget, NSCB claims that P727 ($14.18) per month or P24 ($0.47) per day is enough for someone to survive. How on earth can he or she survive with this amount? What food can one eat with P24 ($0.47) per day or P8 ($0.16) per meal? How can a P365 ($7.12) monthly or P12 ($0.23) daily budget suffice to pay for utilities, personal necessities, transportation, clothing, and rent, not to mention education and health needs? The minimum fare for a jeepney alone is already P7.50 ($0.15).

The NSCB also claims that a minimum wage worker in Metro Manila earning P325 ($6.34) daily can support a family of five. However, workers have been demanding a P125 ($2.44) across-the-board nationwide increase since 1999 since wages are not enough to meet high cost of living requirements.

For beyond government statistics, which are being manipulated to paint a rosy picture, are the views and experiences of the people themselves. The 4th quarter 2005 survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) reveals that Self-Rated Poverty rose to 57%, from 49% in the Third Quarter. It has fluctuated between 46% and 58% since the start of 2004.

In a media release, the SWS survey said that, “The proportion of Filipino households experiencing hunger hit an alarming 16.7% last quarter (of 2005), a new record high from the time SWS began surveying hunger in mid-1998. It has now been in double-digits for seven consecutive quarters.”

The new record level of hunger, the SWS said, was due to an increase in Severe Hunger. The latter, defined as families going hungry Often or Always in the last three months, was at 3.9% in December 2005, affecting approximately over 600,000 families. This reflected an increase from the 2.6% registered in August 2005.

Moderate Hunger, defined as those experiencing it Once or A Few Times in the last three months, was at 12.8% in December 2005, affecting 2.1 million families. It was a very slight decrease from 12.9% in August 2005.

How then can the Arroyo government address poverty when its policies cause the economy to lose wage and salary jobs steadily? How can an increase in unpaid family work and own-account jobs enable a family to rise from poverty?

Even the much-trumpeted business process outsourcing jobs, such as call centers and medical transcription, cannot provide employment for the millions of unemployed and underemployed Filipinos. Aside from this, call centers in particular employ mainly graduates from reputable schools because of its strict English proficiency requirements.

It is not surprising then that more and more Filipinos are intending to work or migrate abroad.

But how many overseas Filipino workers (OFW) can be accommodated abroad? While OFW remittances prop up the economy especially the gross national product (GNP), the balance of payments (BOP) position and the gross international reserves (GIR), overseas work does not strengthen the fundamentals of the economy, particularly domestic employment. And while it provides relief from poverty to families of OFWs, the effect is temporary. Once the OFW is unable to work abroad, these families are back to where they were before except for a few.

Radical solutions

The worsening state of unemployment, underemployment, poverty and hunger clearly shows the need for radical solutions. The country has followed essentially the same economic program for 60 years: export of raw materials and semi-processed goods, dependence on imports for finished goods such as machinery, oil and consumer durables, reliance on foreign investments for capital and technology, etc. And the country has remained backward, agricultural, pre-industrial, cash-strapped and capital-deficient. It never brought the country any nearer to industrialization and prosperity.

The country needs nothing less than radical solutions.

But the solution does not lie in the charter change (Cha Cha) initiatives of the Arroyo administration. Politically, it is a way to keep the incumbent in Malacanang by skirting the issue of legitimacy hounding Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and by providing her with more power, that of the president and prime minister combined. It is also an attempt to water down the Bill of Rights provisions of the 1987 Constitution.

Worse, it is a concession to her most reliable ally, the U.S. government. The proposed amendments practically reverse the hard-earned victory of the Filipino people when they rejected the continued stay of the U.S. military bases in the country. Gone will be the provisions disallowing foreign military bases and nuclear weapons in the country.

Economically, charter change merely enhances the neoliberal polices of the administration by removing all restrictions on foreign capitalists from owning land, exploiting our natural resources, and extracting profit from the provision of basic utilities and services. These are the very same policies that put the country deeper and deeper into crisis and backwardness.

The solution lies in freeing the majority of the Filipino people from feudal bondage and backwardness through a genuine agrarian reform program and rural industrialization; optimizing local capital to enable the country to produce the needs of the domestic market and the local economy and provide gainful employment to the populace through nationalist industrialization; judicious use of our natural resources for local industry; developing our human resources through a scientific, patriotic, and democratic culture; undertaking an independent, mutually beneficial foreign policy and relations; installing a patriotic and pro-people government and instituting a sovereign and democratic constitution.

In the last five years, the Arroyo administration has shown that it will never undertake these measures. On the contrary, it has pursued the very same policies that are causing widespread poverty and has engaged in nothing more than transactional politics to appease its allies. What then is left for the Filipino people to do? (Bulatlat.com)

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