Increasing prosperity, Reducing poverty

PUNCHLINE

Ike Señeres

I agree with the goal of some international organizations to “reduce poverty and share prosperity”, except that I think we should make it a goal to increase prosperity first, before we could share it. Besides that, I think that the sequence should be reversed, meaning that we should increase prosperity first, because by doing that, we would also be decreasing or reducing poverty.

It would really be a big disappointment if after so many years, we would succeed in reducing poverty, and yet there would be no prosperity to share. Our present situation seems to be the reverse of this condition, because we are supposed to have economic prosperity now as government figures would show, and yet this prosperity has not been shared with the poor masses, and that seems to be the reason why poverty has not yet been reduced. No less than Cardinal Luis Tagle has noted this paradox.

The truth is that the twin goals of increasing prosperity and reducing poverty could be done simultaneously, because they would actually complement each other, as a matter of fact, running parallel to each other. Indeed, it would be a contradiction to have a country that is prosperous at the macroeconomic level, and yet the broader masses would still be poor at the microeconomic level. As a side note, I should say that the economic theory of having a “trickling down effect” has already been debunked.

Before moving any further, allow me to flashback to my favorite pet peeve, and I am referring to government officials who until now could not tell the difference between poverty reduction and poverty alleviation. Since I have explained this dichotomy so many times already, I will just say instead that the lack of understanding the difference between these two is the root cause of not having clear cut and clearly defined poverty reduction targets.

One thing for sure, the United Nations has a very clear poverty reduction target, and that is to cut poverty by half by 2015, as one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). What is alarming is that the government is already sending out fillers that it may not be able to meet this goal. That is already bad news to hear as it is, but what is even worse is that the government has not given a time frame as to when the goal of cutting the poverty by half would be achieved. The fact is, it appears that there are no figures coming out as to when and how the 50% reduction target would me met at all.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) says that there are many available jobs, but many workers could not be hired because of mismatches between their skills and the skills needed by the employers. This is perhaps their way of explaining why unemployment figures are high, a factor that contributes to low Per Capita Incomes (PCIs). By consequence, it seems that it would also follow that if unemployment is high, the Gross National Product (GNP) would also be low, because of low productivity.

Poverty reduction is not the only national problem that we are facing. Along with that, we are also facing the problems of global warming, climate change, ASEAN integration and WTO globalization. Just as some government officials could not tell the difference between poverty reduction and poverty alleviation, some of these officials could not seem to understand that global warming is one of the causes of climate change, and in fact there is a direct connection between these two. There is also a direct connection between ASEAN integration and WTO globalization, the former being apparently a subset of the latter.

ASEAN integration is a two bladed sword, a two-way street so to speak. It is a game that we could win if we play it right, but we could also lose the game if we do not play it right. For example, we could win in the agricultural sector if we produce the right products to export, but we could lose if we end up importing most of our food needs instead, assuming that what our ASEAN neighbors would produce would be better and cheaper than what we would produce.

Agriculture has been a risky business long before global warming and climate change came along, but it is even riskier now, more than ever. On this note, I would add that climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) are two seemingly separate concerns that should be addressed as one, especially so that both of these have a direct connection to agricultural productivity. I wonder what agency in the government could bring these two concerns together.

Aiming to increase prosperity and to reduce poverty at the same time is like wanting to take one step backwards and two steps forwards. That is so, because if we only take one step forwards after taking one step backwards, we would only end up in the same spot where we first started, without making any progress. Since we are already behind in terms of our poverty reduction targets, we should actually take four steps forwards after taking one step backwards.

Aiming to build more farm-to-market roads sounds like a good goal at the outset, but that would only make sense if we would first make it a primary goal to increase agricultural productivity. What good would more roads do if we would not have more produce to transport? In the first place, we must first strategize what crops we should produce, with the highly competitive ASEAN integration in mind.

Food security also sounds like a good goal at the outset, but what good would that be if our people would have food only to eat and survive, without a surplus to sell so that we could also prosper beyond our ability to survive? How could we answer all of these questions very quickly?

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