Fifty seven pesos

Monday, 11 April 2011 00:00

Written by Louie C. Montemar

“Hunger rate shocks Aquino” cried one broadsheet's headline. “Ad pullouts hit Willie show,” a more popular broadsheet bannered. “Deputy Ombudsman quits,” was top news in another daily, and in another “P1-B OK'd for 3D map.” Broadsheets often serve the same main course but today the voices of the elite media are not in unison on what is the single most important story for the day. The headlines speak of a nation that is economically (item on hunger), politically (on the Ombudsman), and culturally (on Willie) in the rut. Every main pipe has a leak. So much needs fixing. But where do we start? I posit that we start with the ruling elite and their governance ideas for, in the final analysis, he who has greatest power should be most accountable. “Elite,” following the Cambridge dictionary, simply refers to “the richest [economic elite], most powerful [political elite], best educated or best trained group [cultural elite] in a society.” The ruling elite would be those in official or formal positions of power. Who would therefore be the elite of all ruling elites but the one that along the River Pasig sits and weeps? And thus we take issue here with Malacanang's reaction to the most recent reports by the survey firm SWS on hunger in the country.

Allow us to quote lengthily from an official government publication: “The Philippines is among the countries in Asia with a large number of urban slum dwellers. It is estimated that over 5.0 million Filipinos live in slums in major metropolitan cities. Between 2000 and 2006, the slum population grew at an annual rate of 3.4 percent in urban areas and over 8 percent in the premier city of Metro Manila. Metro Manila, which accounts for 37 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and 13 percent of employment, is home to over 4.0 million slum dwellers or 37 percent of the city’s population in 2010. The magnitude is increasing as Metro Manila is considered one of the rapidly urbanizing megacities, ranking 14th among 20 megacities around the world with a population projected to reach 14.8 million by 2025 (UNCHS 2010)... Not all households in the slums, however, are income poor. Only about 32 percent of the slum population (or less than a million people) are poor based on national national poverty lines [sic] of P20,688 per capita...”

This lengthy extract is necessary to clarify and underscore the point that the needed information about poverty and hunger is and has been available. One just has to masticate a bit and savor the available knowledge to make cogent propositions for policy. The quoted lines come from the January 2011 publication of Policy Notes on “Why slum poverty matters,” written by one Marife M. Ballesteros for the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), government's research institute on development.

What do those lines tell us? More than what they readily state but, most of all, they tell us that Malacanang should not have been “shocked.” It tells us that Malacanang should be more critical of the state’s figures and methods of reporting on poverty and hunger in the country.

Note that government considers “P20,688 per capita” as a national poverty line. This means that to be considered a poor person in this country, one has to have only P20,688 a year or less. That's P56.679452 a day. Let's settle at P57. Check your own lifestyles, our dear Malaki-ang-kanyang.. err... I mean Malacanang officials. If you have been surviving on P57 or less a day, then you must be part of this country's urban poor. Pam-parking fee lamang ninyo ‘yan di ba?

One is thus led to ask in reaction to the President's shock over the news that more Filipinos have reported themselves to have gone hungry and poorer under his administration: “Can the Philippine President survive on P57 a day and not feel hungry or poor?” The key question here is: How realistic is P57 as a measure of a sense of poverty or of hunger? Certainly one will feel economically weak or disempowered with only such amount at one's daily disposal. On food alone, assuming one wishes to have three meals per day, you can only spare so much — say 20 for breakfast, 20 for lunch and 15 dinner? With 2 pesos for snacks? Now find me a place in Manila where you can really have your fill with such amount and I will treat you for a year to that place. (Actually I do have some turo-turo in mind where one can get cheap ready fare, if you won't mind the kind and amount of food that could be had.)

Moreover, from the lines quoted, government itself should know that by its own very conservative (read: “unrealistic”) estimates, there are at least 1,280,000 poor residents in Metro Manila. Malacañang should know that just outside its gates are the teeming masses who live on P57 pesos or less a day.

Fifty seven pesos. We can only wonder how our people cope; we should not wonder why crimes of property like theft and robbery are on the rise in the Metropolis, and why health and education concerns are set aside. As one other President put it, “A hungry stomach knows no law. “ Let me tweak that a bit: “A hungry stomach knows no rules on hygiene or truancy in schools.” This is not to excuse the poor and be mechanical in our analysis, however. Data on health and education simply point to a correlation among poverty, health and education issues.

Furthermore, things do not really appear so simple when one talks of slums or urban poverty. For instance, one irony which that PIDS research-based article notes is that “slum dwellers [pay] more for basic services such as clean water and electricity than residents living in adjacent fully serviced neighborhood. In Metro Manila and Cebu City, residents of nonserviced neighborhoods pay 9 to 13 times more for delivered clean water than those households in serviced areas”. Slums are not just areas of poverty. They are pockets of valuable resources.

What this suggests is that contrary to the view of those who merely see poverty as the veritable product of the ignorance or indolence of the poor, poverty is verily the product as well of the ignorance and indolence of the rich — the rich ruling elite, to be specific.

Let us consider further the second-to-the-last paragraph of the same article: “Slum poverty, however, cannot simply be addressed by traditional poverty programs such as cash transfers. It has in fact been argued that possible trade-offs exist between bad housing and medical care and also between bad housing and education. Moreover, the existence and growth of slums is not a natural consequence of urban growth which will disappear over time with improvements in income. Slum formation and growth is not only caused by rapid urbanization or income poverty but by factors such as regulatory framework on planning and delivery of land for settlements and government spending on infrastructure”.

Hence it should be asked, what's the plan beyond the cash transfers? What is being done or what will be done with regard to the “regulatory framework on planning and delivery of land for settlements and government spending on infrastructure”? Drawing from the Chief Executive’s reaction, I bet my 57 pesos, the answer is not yet very clear at this point, if there is any answer at all, from the ignorant and indolent rich ruling elites of this nation.

There is sufficient information and knowledge contained in government's files and papers on poverty and hunger. No new survey has to be done if all that is really needed is to determine the spread of hunger. SWS simply affirms what government should already know, at the very least, by extrapolation or estimation. Our governors have to read between the lines and go beyond the official reports and statistics. Our leaders have to better chew the information that they are being fed. Tragically, mastication can be very difficult if not impossible if one has a silver spoon stuck in one's mouth.

But then, perhaps we are not doing so bad as one out seven people in the world are hungry or under-nourished anyway. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, at least 925 million are hungry around the world, and the increase in their numbers is due to three factors: one, neglect of agriculture relevant to very poor people by governments and international agencies; two, the current worldwide economic crisis; and, lastly, the significant increase of food prices in the last several years which has been devastating to those with only a few dollars a day to spend.

See, it seems we are at par with the rest of the world. We have globally competitive ruling elites with much, much more than 57 pesos in their pockets or, to be more precise, cash cards. Oh, by the way, here's one question I am sure Malacañang can answer: If I saved 57 pesos a day, how long would it take before I can buy myself a Porsche? Yes, I am being sarcastic, pardon me.

Today is just one of those days when fate seems to remind us that there's one set of stories for the literate masa and another for the supposedly sophisticated elites. The people call it rising hunger. The President, shocked, calls it skewed statistics. For the street sweeper, it's a day's lease on life. For the Porsche-owner, it's just fee for parking rights. It's fifty seven pesos.