Hunger and Shame in Philippines

This morning I watched a report on BBC World about Philippines, a country I love and feel very attached to after having spent one year of my life there.
The report wanted to highlight the effects that the economic recession has had on the country. The latest crisis has affected pretty much any nation, but the impact on developing countries like the Philippines is obviously far more devastating than in first world countries. As one of the many proof of that,
an Asian Development Bank report published in May 07 estimated that food price increases in the Philippines could send an estimated 2.72 million people into absolute poverty. This was the best-case scenario, based on an assumption that the cost of food would rise by 10 percent over the next year. More than 5.6 million people would be pauperised if food prices jumped by 20 percent and over 8.8 million people if the increase were 30 percent.
In such context, where a majority of people live so close to the poverty line, minimum changes in the economic conditions can have huge impact on the lives of million of people. It is therefore even more essential than in developed economies to have a proper social security system to assure basic survival needs to people in case they lose their jobs or get sick.
Unfortunately, according to the BBC report, only 20% of the world population can count on proper social welfare in form of healthcare and unemployment benefits. This 20% is all coming from rich nations. Another 30% of the global population can rely on some form of help and a staggering 50% has no coverage whatsoever.
The BBC report showed, amongst others, Filipino kids swimming in sewage water to collect items that they later on try to sell, the story of a young man who earns just over $1,000 per year but was asked to pay $4000 for hospitalization cost to cure his cancer, leaving him with two options: die or leave a life in debt.
What is most shocking to me is that the government does not seem to care much. Philippines is currently spending only 3.3% of GDP in social security. When asked why they are not investing more, Esperanza Cabral, Social Security Secretary of Philippines answered the BBC that they would like to, but there are other priorities, such as

"...debt repayment, national defense, infrastructure and many other things..."

She said that without any shame in front of a global audience. Frankly I do not really understand how those could be more important than letting your people starve.
Defense from whom? What are those dangerous threats that take priority over people's lives?
Developing infrastructure is essential to a country economy, but should come after having assured basic level of services to the people who live in that country not before. And by the way, whoever has visited Manila will wonder where the money have gone as infrastructure is to say the least not adequate to a capital.
Worse than that, the head of a think tank called Minimal Government Thinkers, Bienvenido Oplas, went on and declared publicly to the BBC that the government should allow poverty and that social welfare

"...corrupts the concept of personal responsibility of people. People can become lazy...and later on demand that certainly economic benefits are their rights" - Bienvenido Oplas, Minimal Government Thinkers.

To put it bluntly, Mr. Oplas, a Filipino living in Makati, is declaring to the BBC that he believes Filipinos to be too lazy to deserve a social security system as they'd would only exploit it by staying at home and collecting the government benefits instead of finding a job.
I hope only that these people do not seriously believe in what they say or I suggest they watch the video below. It is "Chicken a la Carte", a short movie by Ferdinand Dimadura that won public approval at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival (available at Culture Unplugged).

Watch the full BBC World report below:

The plane is falling

Once upon a time, human beings tried to fly. They built crafts but did not succeed and the reason was simple: the plane they built was not designed to fly and being subject to the law of gravity it would crash.
Our society, so called “civilization”, is not designed to fly. We are in a plane that is falling, but as we cannot see the ground yet we believe the plane is flying.

There are facts that clearly show the society we have built is not well designed to assure long-term, sustainable growth and well-being for the majority of the people living on this planet:

1. 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. The bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth (report from World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University).
   
2. 1.4 billion people (around 25% of the world population) live under the poverty line of $1.25 a day
   
3. Today 1 in 6 people have no access to fresh water. Water consumption due to human activity is growing fast. Instead of countering the problem, governments and international financial institutions are already making sure this scarce but vital resource is privatized and handed to few privileged corporations.
   
4. Global climate changes due to human activities are occurring today, causing disasters affecting million of people and species. As I am writing this blog, BBC News has announced that the Arctic Ocean could be largely ice-free and open to shipping during the summer in as little as ten years' time (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8307272.stm).
   
   
   

   "The Catlin Arctic Survey data supports the new consensus view - based on seasonal variation of ice extent and thickness, changes in temperatures, winds and especially ice composition - that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years, and that much of the decrease will be happening within 10 years.

   "That means you'll be able to treat the Arctic as if it were essentially an open sea in the summer and have transport across the Arctic Ocean."
   Professor Peter Wadham, University of Cambridge
   
   
   

   
   
5. Every year, up to 30,000 species disappear due to human activity alone. At this rate, we could lose half of Earth's species in this century

Ask yourself questions:

• How many people do you know who live with less than $1.25 a day? My answer is none.
  
• How many people do you know who have no access to fresh water? My answer is none.
  

Yet the numbers do not lie. We should expect that 1 out of 4 of our friends live below the poverty line and 1 out of 6 cannot access fresh water. For each 4 people you know who are earning more than $1.25 a day, there is somebody, somewhere else who has to have 2 out 4 friends who are poor. If you know 8 people who are not poor, somewhere somebody else has to have 3 out 4 friends, relatives, family members who are surviving on less than $1.25 a day.

By now the pattern is clear. People who have the education and resources to change things for the better are the ones who do not see the problem first hand as belong to the so called "first world". The worse is that we are so busy with our jobs, daily lives, that we do not stop for a second to acknowledge we live in a flawed world, where a minority of us is given the illusion of well-being, while the majority is abandoned.

The picture below shows where the poor are. If you live in the blue countries, chances are you have seen poverty only on TV.

Percentage of Population Living Under Poverty Line

In China and India, the fastest growing economies in the world, between 21%-40% and 41%-60% respectively, survive with less than $1.25 a day. Though, when you watch the news all you hear is about how fast those economies are growing.
India’s capital of Delhi has a million and a half out of fourteen million living in slums. Mumbai is worst with greater percentage living in slums.
What media tell us is that at 8% growth rate of Indian economy will push per capita GDP to $2,000 level in about twenty to twenty-five years. Assuming that the population does not explode in the near future but continue a healthy 1.5 to 2% growth poverty and slums could end. On the other hand if the above does not happen then slums dwellers will triple in 25 years and so will the poverty.                 

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Our social model is not catering for the needs of the majority of the population and the species who with us inhabit this planet. By prioritizing selfish profit above anything else, a small percentage of us is given the illusion of well-being, while at the same time endangering the survival of our poorer brothers and sisters, depleting natural resources and extinguishing the very existence of animal species. The pursuit of maximum profit at all cost is causing the destruction of the same world we live in. If we don't change direction soon, no profit will be left to be made, the plane will soon crash to the ground.