PHILIPPINES: Long Way to Go in Fight Against Poverty

MANILA, Oct 18 (IPS) - "It’s very difficult," says Joseph, 39, who has lived with his wife and three children in central Manila’s Rizal Park for the past six months after their home, a squat built on government-owned land, was demolished. "There are many people who are experiencing a lot of hardship here," he adds.

Joseph sells picnic mats to people who come to the park to enjoy its greenery and open spaces. These visitors take advantage of the pleasant surroundings to escape from the Philippine capital’s clogged urban sprawl.

But for Joseph and many others like him, Rizal Park is now home. They sleep along the edges of the park’s pond, hoping the police do not come to arrest or evict them.

Joseph’s children, aged three, five and eight, go to "bed" hungry if their father does not sell enough mats to satisfy the family’s needs, and Joseph does not earn enough to send them to school.

It is a situation that the global ‘Stand Up and Take Action’ campaign is aiming to rectify, with millions of people around the world involved in events from Oct. 16 to 18 to demand the eradication of poverty and hunger.

Ending extreme poverty and hunger is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of objectives to which most countries around the world, along with a host of agencies, have committed themselves to achieving by 2015.

While some progress has been made toward attaining the MDGs, the consensus is that the bulk of the work is yet to be done—and there are just six years before the deadline.

In a statement issued on Oct. 17, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for the redoubling of efforts around the globe toward this end.

"We are at a critical juncture in the fight against poverty. Now is the time to amplify the voices of the vulnerable and ensure that the world follows up on its pledges," said Ban.

In the Philippines, where poverty remains rife, a National Week for Overcoming Extreme Poverty (NWOEP) has been held annually from Oct. 17 to 23 since 2004, when it was established by President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo.

According to Domingo Panganiban, secretary of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC)—a government agency charged with overseeing poverty reduction efforts—some 35.2 million Filipinos participated in last year’s observance of the NWOEP.

Panganiban is keen to improve this turnout in 2009 to increase public awareness of the plight of poor Filipinos and to encourage support of the Arroyo administration’s poverty eradication programmes.

But in a speech delivered during a ‘Stand Up and Take Action’ event held on Oct.17 in Rizal Park—just metres from where Joseph and other homeless people sleep—Panganiban said that around 27.6 million Filipinos remain impoverished despite the "dramatic results" which have come from "new technologies and new economic opportunities."

"Still too many among us are forced to live under conditions of extreme poverty, with little to eat and much less to hope for in the future. Still too many of our children die of curable disease or otherwise grow into the responsibilities of adulthood without access to basic education," said the NAPC Secretary.

Sem Cordial, also from the NAPC, told IPS that while there are "islands of success as far as poverty eradication is concerned," impoverishment remains a massive problem in the nation of almost 100 million inhabitants.

"That has been the overarching development problem of the country that has preoccupied the government since I can remember," says Cordial.

But although both Panganiban and Cordial were keen to highlight the government’s involvement in efforts to lift millions of people out of poverty, the latter also admitted that the situation was actually getting worse.

"I think over one-third of the Philippine population lives below the poverty line. A big part of that is in the rural area and the number [of people in living in poverty] appears to be increasing," Cordial says.

That the situation is deteriorating is not news to many Filipinos. Another person who lives in Rizal Park, Nonie Entanes, has witnessed the park’s increasing population of homeless people.

The 52-year-old Entanes, a single man, told IPS that he has lived in the park since 1980 and believes that the park has "become crowded."

"Before, there were only a few people living here in Luneta [Rizal Park’s former name]. But now, as time goes by, there are many people staying here."

One of the newer arrivals is Jason Reoganis, 15. The youngster has been living and sleeping in the park—or along the nearby boulevard, which skirt’s Manila Bay—for the past two months.

Jason, who left his family home in Pasay in metro Manila’s southern zone to escape the beatings handed out to him by his drug-addicted parents, only studied up to grade four.

He says he does not think about the future. "Maybe if I’d been able to finish school then I’d have a job," he says.

To survive, Jason collects plastic bottles from the garbage with a friend, 29- year-old Samuel Quijano. The pair then sells the bottles to a local junk shop.

Quijano told IPS that he makes about 30 pesos (64 U.S. cents) a day, but if there are no plastic bottles to collect, then he will ask a nearby restaurant for burnt rice that the business cannot sell to customers or beg passersby for money to buy food.

"It’s very hard, staying and sleeping in the street or on a bench by the sea," he says.

And while those involved in the ‘Stand Up and Take Action’ events in the Philippines and elsewhere clearly empathise with people who are less fortunate, the immediacy of need for those who live in dire conditions can sometimes be misjudged.

Joseph, the mat seller, tried and failed to get some food from the NAPC- organised event in the park. "It’s nice that there is this [poverty awareness] day, but it would be nicer if we could benefit too," he says.

(END/2009)

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