Poverty escalating under GMA

“28 Quarters of Economic Growth! Sustained growth and sound fundamentals attracting more investments, creating more jobs!” Thus boasts a newspaper paid advertisement by pro-administration officials.
This could be another lie under the Arroyo administration’s sleeves, however. In its latest report this week, the government’s National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) said that the incidence of poverty is escalating as more and more Filipino families are getting poorer. The NSCB said 32.9% of the population, or 27.6 million Filipinos, are poor, nearly three percentage points higher than the 30% reported in 2003.
The NSCB report confirms what almost every Filipino already knows: Worsening poverty in the country. The independent think-thank IBON Foundation says however that poverty incidence could even be worse than what NSCB had reported. Please read the following stories:

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The National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) report that poverty in the country worsened in 2006 only proves that the claim of Malacañang of an improving economy is false, said independent think-tank IBON Foundation.

It also validates the research group's findings that poverty in the country is actually worsening for the past seven years.

According to the NSCB, 32.9% of the population, or 27.6 million Filipinos, are poor, nearly three percentage points higher than the 30% reported in 2003. This was computed using an annual poverty threshold of P15,057.

But says IBON executive editor Rosario Bella Guzman, "The poverty incidence could actually be worse than reported due to such low poverty threshold."

Using official figures, a Filipino needs just P41.25 a day to meet his or her food and non-food basic requirements and stay out of poverty, a figure that is obviously insufficient for all but basic subsistence needs. "In fact, poverty in the Philippines could be so widespread that the NSCB is using these low threshold figures to understate the actual extent of poverty," says Guzman.

In the IBON's self-rated poverty survey conducted last January, 7 1.7% Filipinos considered themselves poor.

The NSCB data is not the only evidence that validates the growing poverty in the country. Images of poverty still pervade the daily lives of millions of Filipinos, as shown by other government statistics.

Real wages in the country (taking inflation into account with 2000 as the base year) have actually fallen from P340.80 in 2001 to P141.97 in 2007.

Even worse, the daily minimum wage in the NCR of P362 is just 40% of the estimated family living wage of P806 (as of December 2007).

Further, according to the 2006 Family Income and Expenditure Survey, the country's poorest families (some 13.9 million) found themselves with less income than in 2001. The situation is worse for the poorest 5.2 million households who remain mired in debt, with an average of P1,700 debt per household in 2006.

Inequality also remained severe in 2006, as the richest 20% of Filipino families (3.5 million) accounted for 52.8% of total family income, while the poorest 80% (13.9 million) had to share the remaining 47.3 percent. The income of the richest 10% of Filipino households was equivalent to 19 times that of the poorest 10 percent.

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The trend of worsening poverty in the country noted by the FIES confirms how the majority of Filipinos in the country don't benefit from economic growth. Independent think-tank IBON Foundation issued this statement in response to the paid advertisement published by Malacañang allies saying that the economy enjoyed 28 quarters of economic growth under the Arroyo administration.

According to IBON research head Sonny Africa, growth in gross domestic product (GDP) averaged 5.4% in the period 2003-2006, yet the number of poor Filipinos even increased by 3.8 million.

"In contrast to the government's underestimated poverty levels, IBON notes that some 70%-80% of Filipinos try to live off around P100 or less every day," said Africa.

The problem lies most of all in government neglect of the manufacturing and agricultural sectors, which are at their smallest shares of the economy since the 1950s, added Africa. This decline in the country's economic foundations drove the unemployment rate to an average of 11.4% in the 2003-2006, which is the worst four-year period of unemployment in the country's history. There were 11.6 million Filipinos jobless or otherwise underemployed and looking for additional income in 2006.

Backward industry and agriculture cannot create jobs and the labor force is being forced into low-paying, irregular and insecure jobs in the service sector.

For instance while the government hyped 2007 as seeing the fastest economic growth in three decades, the most jobs created last year were in the additional 142,000 working as domestic household help.

The trend of worsening poverty also exposes the folly of relying on overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and remittances to support domestic household incomes. Poverty has increased despite ever-increasing number of OFWs going abroad and record remittances. By last year, nearly 3,000 Filipinos were going abroad to find work every day and the stock of some nine million overseas Filipinos remitted a record US$14.5 billion. Yet the government is continuing with this retrogressive cheap labor export policy.

The government also continues to promote economic activities that profit foreign corporations rather than benefit the domestic economy. It is promoting foreign investment-intensive call centers and business process outsourcing (BPO), mining, and manufacturing in export enclaves. Unfortunately these are sectors of weak job creation, little multiplier effect, no technological spillover, and poor contributions to the domestic capital stock. It is also pushing free trade policies such as the JPEPA and through ASEAN even if such trade and investment liberalization has been among the main factors that have undermined the domestic economy.

"Without fundamental changes in economic policies, the country's joblessness and poverty situation can only get worse, and the so-called sustained growth will only benefit foreign and big local business," said Africa.

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The Philippines has once again been downgraded by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG), an international think-tank focused on crisis analysis worldwide.

ICG’s February 2008 report included the Philippines on its list of countries with “deteriorating situation” due to increased presence of government troops in Metro Manila. The country is listed together with Cameroon, Comoros Islands, Congo, Ethiopia, Israel, Somalia and Serbia.

The group noted that the number of military and police forces increased in the county’s capital in the midst of anti-government rallies and an alleged plot to assassinate President Gloria M. Arroyo. ICG also noted that the massacre in Maimbung, Sulu last Feb.4 where eight civilians including two children were killed, contributed to the deteriorating situation of the country.

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Another China deal: Arroyo gave up sovereignty over Spratlys?

The Arroyo administration is likely to hit another wrong turn as Senate and the House of Representatives prepare to probe into the 2004 agreement between China and the Philippines for an alleged $8 billion loan package in exchange for trading Philippine sovereignty claims over Spratly, a group of islands in South China Sea.
The government signed the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking (JSMU) agreement in 2004, allowing China – as well as Vietnam - to gather seismic data off Palawan in an area largely within the Philippines’ territorial waters. Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo quickly defended the deal as “a plus, not a sell out”.
Lawmakers this week filed resolutions seeking an inquiry to determine whether the agreement is tantamount to the “sellout” of our sovereign rights in exchange for “overpriced loans” to fund corruption-laden projects.