Poverty and starvation

BANTAY GOBYERNO
Ike Señeres

We should all be shocked to learn that 25% of Filipinos are “experiencing hunger”, and 50% consider themselves to be poor, not just President Noynoy Aquino. Thanks to the Social Weather Station (SWS), this grim reality is now known to all of us, and we should all do something about it.

According to economist Mr. Butch Valdez, “hunger” is actually a mild term to use, because the more accurate term is “starvation”. I recently interviewed Mr. Valdez and Dr. Ernie Gonzales in my TV show, and both of them said that not unless we change the economic policies that are now in place in our country, the poverty and hunger problems here will worsen, possibly even destroying our entire country in the years to come.

Reacting to their statements, I asked them why is it that our government and our people are not yet seriously alarmed about the situation, considering that it appears to have already reached a very critical stage. I then offered the explanation that perhaps the reason why we are not yet alarmed, is because people are not yet dying in the streets, unlike what has happened in India.

It was Dr. Gonzales who explained that in our culture, we still manage to take care of the sick and the dying in our homes, and that is why we do not see people dying in the streets. His explanation is acceptable, but if that is the case, we should still find out how many people are dying because of poverty and hunger, directly or indirectly. If we have to require our hospitals and our funeral parlors to do that, we must do so, because we need the data to be able to guide our policy actions.

I am not an economist myself, but I would venture to offer an explanation that we still do not see people dying in the streets, because the problem of homelessness here has not yet worsened as it has in India. What I mean however is that people here still manage to have a place to stay even if it is just a shanty. If however we strictly define the standards for decent habitable homes, these shanty dwellers would all technically become “homeless”, even if they have places to stay.

One does not have to be an economist to understand that the problem of hunger is directly related to the problem of poverty, and the problem of homelessness is directly related to both also. During the interview, Mr. Valdez said that we should not be surprised if the poor people will die as they do, because they have nothing to eat, and when they are hungry, they get sick, and when they get sick, they have no means to get medical attention, so they die.

To that, I will add that if they are homeless, there is a higher probability that they will get sick, because they are not protected from the elements.

Three Filipinos are executed in China, and we are all scandalized. The fact is, about three thousand poor people die here every day according to Mr. Valdez, and we are not scandalized. I understand that there are many economic policies that need to be changed in order to solve the problem of poverty related deaths, but first of all, it has to change with our change of values, about what we consider to be important, and what is not.

Of course it is important for us to plan a good future for our people, but first things first, we must first deal with the present triple problems of poverty, hunger and homelessness. The first order of business is to declare a national state of emergency to address the problem of hunger. We are preparing for the eventuality that people could die in case of an earthquake, but we are not doing enough to deal with the present reality of hunger.

The best place to start is at the barangay level, where serious and real poverty mapping should be done immediately, leading to a database that should include data about poverty, hunger, sickness and homelessness. These are the four data sets that should always be gathered together, not one at a time. Everyone should get involved in this exercise, and anyone who needs help in putting up a database should let me know, because I can help.

It is not yet in our national consciousness, but it is now about time for local government units (LGUs) to put up homeless shelters. We are all aware of the existence of street children, but the fact is, there are street families already if we just bother to look. It goes without saying that street families are in effect homeless, but we should also include in that category all families that are staying in shanties, because in effect, they do not have real homes.

For my part, I will assign myself the homework of organizing a food bank starting in Metro Manila, so that food companies and restaurants could donate their surplus foodstuffs to these homeless shelters in exchange for tax credits.

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