88% of Filipinos Today are Poor - IBON

In its mid-year economic and political briefing held last July 15 at the Philippine Social Science Center in Quezon City, IBON Foundation, an independent think tank and research institution, revealed that while the economy may have posted high growth rates as government claimed, other major social indicators are in fact on the downside.

By Dennis Espada
Bulatlat.com

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her Cabinet are gloating over the administration's economic performance in the last six months--capped with a 5.6% growth of the Gross National Product (GNP) during the first quarter. Despite this, millions of Filipinos continue to bear the brunt of a "worsening" economic crunch while living under extreme poverty.

In fact, about 88% of Filipinos may be considered poor today, IBON Foundation said in a recent forum.

In its mid-year economic and political briefing held last July 15 at the Philippine Social Science Center in Quezon City, IBON Foundation, an independent think-tank and research institution, revealed that while the economy may have posted high growth figures as government claimed, other major social indicators are in fact on the downside.

Unreal growth

In her briefing paper, Rosario Bella Guzman, executive director of IBON, said that huge debt, wholesale of natural resources and war are the real score behind Arroyo's economics.

As of March this year, the country's foreign debt now stands at $55.8 billion, with a current total debt (acquired from both foreign and domestic sources) of  P2.9 trillion. This, according to Guzman, is one of the two major factors behind the sudden GNP and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth which she described as "irrelevant."

Gross Domestic Product (GNP) is the total value of goods and services produced within a

country over a period, while the GDP is the total value of goods and services including incomes from overseas investments and workers for a period.

The trade deficit, for one, has reached $502 million as imports grew by 22.6% to $10.01 billion compared to exports, which grew by only 4% to $9.01 billion, the IBON executive director added.

Government spending for the first four months of the year has resulted in a deficit of P65.5 billion, way below last period's claimed surplus of P83 billion.

Meanwhile, operations of foreign companies in gas and oil mining resulted in an 8.9% growth in the mining sector, the highest in all industries.

Although unemployment is slightly lower (at 12.2% in April) compared to last year's 13.9%, the country's unemployment rate remains highest in Asia. 

Poverty

Despite these figures, IBON estimates that about 88% of Filipinos may be considered poor. In the National Capital Region, the P280 minimum wage has gone lower than the estimated decent income for a family of six at P545.73 (as of May).

The United Nations Report on the Human Development Index for 2003 also revealed that

the Philippines slid from 77th to 85th place among countries in the world where people live under extreme poverty. The Human Development Index measures quality of income, health, education and political participation.

Guzman also said that President Arroyo's assiduous support for the United States' (U.S.) wars of aggression purportedly to thwart "terrorism" has posed the biggest sale that ever occurred under her regime, beating her predecessors.

The Macapagal-Arroyo government, Guzman said, gained billions of dollars as a reward for the president’s allegiance to U.S. President George Bush.

The economic and military aid package Bush committed to Macapagal-Arroyo includes a $126 million for training and excess defense articles (EDA) such as 30 Huey helicopters and a number of C-130 cargo planes; $686 million worth of economic projects; a $357 million military aid package; $75 million for Filipino war veterans; $32.8 million for the

reintegration of the Moro National Liberation Front; a $3.2 billion-worth of government and business agreements; and $1 million to enhance the skills of the police in narcotics control.

"The social unrest characterized by worsening peace and order situation, erosion of living standards and escalation of poverty, has not only made growth statistics irrelevant,” the IBON executive director said. “It has defined the real impact of President Arroyo's allegiance to the United States (U.S.)--its wars and globalization agenda--on a society that is perennially in crisis. With such social disintegration, who can talk about a strong republic?".

Pre-election scenarios

IBON's research director Antonio Tujan Jr., on the other hand, underscored that key problems of social unrest persist, providing a breeding ground for armed rebellion most especially in the rural countryside.

He noted a "dramatic" increase of armed confrontations between the communist-led New People's Army (NPA) and state military forces, with 90 incidents in the first half of the year.

Human rights violations (HRVs) in the country have also increased alarmingly, Tujan said. Data compiled by human rights groups Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People's Rights) and the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace (EMJP) from January-May this year alone showed a total of 2,010 cases of HRVs, compared to 966 for the entire year of 2002.

As regards the May 2004 presidential elections, Tujan sees a united opposition currently in the works, while the ruling coalition may be split into factions.

"President Macapagal-Arroyo's announcements not to run are meant, in typical Macapagal-Arroyo fashion, to blunt her poor popularity ratings,” Tujan said. “It is a

difficult trick to pull through as we had projected at the start of the year, but this early the campaign is in earnest all over the country to create the illusion for a popular movement asking Arroyo to run."

"I expect Arroyo to run (in 2004)," Tujan told mediamen.

The election fever is fast developing, Tujan said. And while all presidential aspirants will resort to grandstanding or promoting their own popularity without any clear platform for change, Filipinos cannot expect anything new to give them significant relief from their basic problems.

Can we count on traditional politicians to cut down high water and electricity rates, prices of basic commodities, increase wages to decent living standards, provide health and education, and give out land to the landless?, he asked. Bulatlat.com

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