The immediate past administration of President Benigno Aquino III is remembered for many things, and among those that stand out is its callousness.
This was a President who was made notorious by his words “Buhay pa naman kayo, diba?” which he uttered to a hapless survivor of Typhoon “Yolanda” in 2013 who had raised the issue of looting in his store.
That statement exposed Mr. Aquino’s inability to put himself in the shoes of others, and made his poverty-alleviation initiatives appear less genuine and more mechanical.
Unfortunately, we have the National Economic and Development Authority to remind us that no single administration has the monopoly on indifference.
Last week, the Neda released a stupefying breakdown of how a family of five can allocate an income of P10,000 a month.
The “hypothetical situation” presented by Neda showed the “consumer basket of an average Filipino family” which consisted of:
• P3,834 for food and non-alcoholic beverages,
• P158 for alcoholic beverages,
• P293 for clothing and footwear,
• P2,204 for housing-water-electricity-gas and others,
• P295 for furnishing and maintenance,
• P389 for health,
• P806 for transport,
• P293 for communication,
• P141 for recreation and culture,
• P328 for education, and
• P1,259 for restaurants and miscellaneous goods and services.
After the computation caused an uproar among the people—and occasioned numerous memes online—the agency was compelled to issue a clarification that the P10,000 budget it had mentioned was merely hypothetical. Neda Undersecretary Rosemarie Edillon insisted they merely wanted to show how P10,000 will be affected by a 4.6 percent inflation rate.
The agency also did not say that P10,000 was enough.
That explanation sounds hollow and does little to tens of millions of Filipinos reeling from the daily struggle of making ends meet. It also does not reflect the hardships of those who do not even get their wages paid adequately and on time.
That a breakdown for how a five-member family could break down P10,000 to survive was even provided in the first place is an insult to those who try to do it every month—and fail.
We are certain the Duterte administration does not wish to be remembered as one that told its citizens to stop whining and to make do with so little. It would instead want to show us that its compassion and commiseration are not hypothetical at all.