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Unmasking poverty

Links: Medical tourism in Indonesia. Advantages of working in Brunei. Impact of Western culture in Laos. Soldiers using Buddha amulets in Thailand.

Myanmar: Long prison terms for dissidents, a post written for Global Voices. Read the French translation.

The Philippines is a poor country. But it seems it is not too poor to qualify for debt relief programs. International finance institutions classify the Philippines as a middle-income country because of its overseas remittances. There is a disconnect between what economists measure and what ordinary Filipinos experience everyday. The alchemists, este, economists, insist that OFW money is proof of economic growth, prosperity. But in reality it signifies dependence, economic bondage, and domestic poverty.

The government, global capital, and their paid mercenaries are doing everything to mask the extent of poverty in the Philippines. To preserve the oppressive status quo, it is important to deceive the people about the grand failure of capitalism in uplifting the conditions in a backward society (read: semifeudal, semicolonial) like the Philippines.

Since it is impossible to hide the truth of poverty in the country, the apologist-pimps concoct various academic hubris to distort the meaning of poverty as we know it.

Politicians often twist words when they discuss poverty. For example, OFWs are now called expats by President Gloria Arroyo. Government agencies redefine economic terms to minimize poverty incidences. For instance, if you’re jobless but not looking for work, then you are not considered unemployed. During a public hearing, a congressman asked the NEDA about the basis of its statement which claimed that more than 80 percent of VAT revenues were paid by the rich. The NEDA representative said that those who earn at least seven thousand pesos a month are considered rich by the government.

Another tried and tested formula is to physically eliminate the poor. Painted walls were built near the highways to hide the dwellings of the poor during the Imeldific days. The MMDA uses Gestapo tactics to deny the poor of opportunities to earn a living in the streets of Metro Manila. Relocation programs do not cease. In the past, Manila’s urban poor residents were relocated to Quezon City, Cavite, Bulacan and Laguna. Smokey Mountain did not disappear; it was transferred to remote Payatas. Soon Payatas and the urban poor communities around it would have to be removed as well since they have become too close to Quezon City’s rising business centers and middle class subdivisions.

There is a new strategy. Well, it is an old ruthless tactic which has been somewhat modified today: Kill the defenders of the poor. Liquidate the activists so that the rest of the population will think twice before challenging the authorities. It works in many ways but in the end it is ineffective.

Poverty indicators: 1970s

What is then the extent of poverty in the country? If the government is to be believed, at least 30 percent of the population are poor. It is definitely a conservative estimate. To measure poverty, economists cite numerous statistics: daily cost of living, minimum wage, inflation, family expenditures, GDP.

There are many good articles exposing the government manipulation of numbers to minimize poverty in the country. I will focus on poverty studies during the 1970s. My primary source is an article written by Edna Formilleza of De La Salle University.

During the early 1970s, one way to measure the poverty threshold was to determine the budget for an inexpensive food basket, as determined by the Food and Nutrition Center. A sample of an official inexpensive menu during that time: tomato egg salad, sweet potatoes, plus five kinds of vegetables. (Walang instant noodles? Hehe).

Here are some selected national poverty indicators in 1973

- 69.9 percent, poverty incidence in the Philippines
- 28.3 percent, households with electricity
- 63.8 percent, households with water pump
- 41.3 percent, households with toilets
- 72.6 percent, households using wood or charcoal for cooking

In 1975 the subsistence standard of living includes “the cost of a basket of goods and services providing nutritional, shelter, health, and educational requirements for the inter-generational survival of the family.” The following are considered as absolute minimum requirements of living:

1. Shelter and clothing for protection against the elements;
2. Health care needs to prevent and recover from diseases prevalent in the community;
3. The level of education necessary to achieve literacy;
4. Abilities and skills needed for minimum degree of social, political and economic participation;
5. Two changes in garment per person per year;
6. Schooling up to Grade VI for children;
7. Inputed cost of rent

In 1978 the NSDB (DOST ata ngayon) and MSSD (DSWD ngayon) conducted a poverty study in the city of Manila. Urban poor residents along Philippine National Railway tracks and esteros were interviewed. Here are some of the findings:

- 42 percent of household heads were unemployed
- 60 percent of household dwellings were shanties (barong-barong)
- 30 percent use public toilets
- 30 percent use ballot (wrap) system for their toilet facility
- radio was the most popular type of communication medium, followed by newspapers and comics

Sen

Last year, I was able to read Amartya Sen’s Inequality Reexamined. His arguments are compelling: Measuring low income and income gap to determine poverty level are restrictive in assessing inequality. Sen said “neither approach pays attention to distribution of income among poor.” Even among the poor living below the poverty line, there are those who are poorer than others.

His proposal: “Poverty is better seen in terms of capability failure than in terms of failure to meet the basic needs of specified commodities… to be poor is to have an income below what is adequate for generating the specified levels of capabilities for the person in question.”

Sen is advocating equality of capabilities, not equality of opportunities. He believes it is more practical and correct to judge inequality in terms of the capability to achieve and the freedom to pursue well-being. Possession of primary goods/high income does not guarantee achievements of well-being. Some would have more capability and freedom to pursue their well-being than others.

Sen argued that achievement in capability has to be sought in public policy.

Special economic indicators

Is there a link between leg appeal and prosperity? Writer Caroline Bird notes that skirt sales dropped in 1921 and 1929 - which were periods of economic recession in the United States. Skirt sales rose in 1927, during World War II, and 1965 - which were prosperous times. On the other hand, it has been observed that lipsticks and cupcakes are selling well during hard times.

There is a Big Mac index and Coca Cola index, why not a Starbucks index? Daniel Gross of Slate writes:

"There's a pretty close correlation between a country having a significant Starbucks presence, especially in its financial capital, and major financial cock-ups…Having a significant Starbucks presence is a pretty significant indicator of the degree of connectedness to the form of highly caffeinated, free-spending capitalism that got us into this mess.

London has 256 Starbucks. Madrid has 48. Paris 36. South Korea has 256. Manhattan alone has nearly 200. Hong Kong has more than 100. Kuala Lumpur has more than 30. Singapore has 57 Starbucks

"There are many spots on the globe where it's tough to find a Starbucks. And these are precisely the places where banks are surviving.

"In the entire continent of Africa, I count just three (in Egypt), We haven't heard much about bailouts in Central America, where Starbucks has no presence. South America's banks may be buckling, but they haven't broken. Argentina, formerly a financial basket case and now a pocket of relative strength, has just one store. Brazil, with a population of nearly 200 million, has a mere 14.

"Italy hasn't suffered any major bank failures in part because its banking sector isn't very active on the international scene. The number of Starbucks there? Zero. And the small countries of Northern Europe, whose banking systems have been largely spared, are largely Starbucks-free. (There are two in Denmark, three in the Netherlands, and none in the Scandinavian trio of Sweden, Finland, and Norway.)"

Ilan ba ang Starbucks sa Pilipinas? Isama pa diyan ang ibang mga tindahan ng kape.

These indicators are interesting and funny but they do not explain the roots of our economic woes. A semifeudal society like the Philippines is always in crisis; that is why the conditions for waging a revolution are always present. Para yang mga ulat trapiko sa TV at radyo: Kailan ba walang trapik sa Metro Manila tuwing umaga’t hapon?


Related entries:

Debt experience
Poverty and system losses
Pikit kape

posted by: mongpalatino at November 18, 2008 08:03 | link | comments |
economy

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