There appears to be a clear disconnect between the current focus—obsession might be the more accurate word—of government policy and the most recent SWS (Social Weather Stations) report on the state of poverty and food-poorness in this country. The disconnect reminds one of the taunt directed by challenger Bill Clinton at incumbent US President George Bush during their 1990 electoral contest: “It’s the economy, stupid.” With the SWS findings as basis, insightful observers of the present administration’s preoccupation with illegal drugs would be correct in changing the 1990 Clinton taunt to read “It’s the poverty, stupid.”
The policymakers and spokesmen of the present administration are acting and speaking as though the war against the illegal drug trade were the proper object of government attention and resources. But a reading of the SWS report quickly shows that the war on illegal drugs represents a case of mis-identification of this country’s most serious problem. The Duterte administration is holding—to borrow a phrase from the Philippine National Police chief’s lexicon—the wrong suspect.
The report of the SWS identifies poverty as the right suspect. The following are the findings of its most recent survey, conducted from Sept. 24 to 27, 2016 with 1,200 adult respondents, as reported in the media last week:
“The survey found that four out of every 10 Filipino families (equivalent to 9.6 million households) consider themselves poor.
“It was also found that 6.7 million families (30 percent of the total) consider themselves food-poor.
“The median self-rated poverty threshold is the monthly budget that would satisfy the basic needs of the poorer half of poor households.
“Self-rated food poverty is defined as having to forego at least one meal in the three months immediately preceding the survey.”
At the accepted five-members definition of an average Filipino, 9.4 million households translates into 47 million Filipinos who consider themselves poor today. And 6.7 million self-rated food-poor Filipino families translates into 33.5 million Filipinos who missed at least one meal during the last quarter.
These Filipinos also refer to the Philippines as “my country.” Indeed, it is their country too, and they have a right to a government that will provide the kind of governance that will lift them out of poverty and put food on the table at every meal, every day.
If Bill Clinton—he who appears to be about to become America’s First Gentleman—were a candidate for the Philippine Presidency today, he would not say that the key national issue was drugs or relations with a particularly disliked country or labor contractualization.
He would say, as he very successfully said in 1990, “It’s the poverty, stupid.”
E-mail: [email protected]