Aquino-Poverty in The Philippines (Documented Essay)
Poverty in the Philippines is most likely to involve marginalized populations. The reasons for poverty in the Philippines are multifactorial and it would be too simple to say that poverty is simply a result of unemployment. Although the ratio of employed men is higher than that of women, these men are also the ones who are more likely to get higher wages. While employed women may be in a better state than those unemployed, the wages they receive are much lower than that of the men. Moreover, with the growing phase of globalization and with this, the expansion of the free market economy in the Philippines, there seems to be no solution to narrowing down the gap between the rich and the poor as well as to lessen the poverty level. The globalization process has caused the domestic industries to get on a competition against the imported products which in comparison are cheaper due to the lower production cost in the other countries. This has resulted in unemployment, lower wage and a shift of capital and other resources. This effect, also known as "globalization of poverty", on the domestic industries in the Philippines has made less job opportunities for those who are seeking for the employment to earn their living.
Poverty in the Philippines remains high. The proportion of families living below the official poverty line has remained stuck at roughly 20% since the late seventies. The distribution of poverty has been very high in those areas which have a low per capita income and high inflation. Also, there are considerable differences across regions, the urban and rural areas, and socio-economic classes in the Philippines. The 1988 and 1997 rounds of the Family Income and Expenditure Surveys (FIES) have shown that between 50% to 60% of the total number of poor families were in the rural sector. The figure kept on increasing and in 1997, 64% of the total number of poor families were in the rural sector. Also, comparing the poverty incidence in the urban and rural areas, for the same period of the FIES, 3 out of every 10 families in the rural areas were poor. This is about twice as much as for those in the urban areas, where about 1 out of 10 families is poor. Such a geographical pattern of poverty and the differences are the outcome of high population growth rates, low agricultural productivity, low income in the rural sector, low employment in the formal sector and lack of employment opportunity there, demographic pressure, high inflation, and economic policy disparities between prices of agricultural and manufactured goods, and government economic and social policy favoring the urban areas and the rich (Balisacan and Fuwa, 2003) and the lack of rural development and economic growth in those provinces which are less integrated with the national and international economy and less developed (Horwitz and De Villa, 1991).
In the pursuit of sustainable and inclusive growth, the Philippine government has placed poverty reduction and inequality high on its policy agenda. In recent years, the approach has been to address inequality by promoting social change from within, through inclusive economic growth and investment in people and places left behind. Codified in the Philippine Development Plan ("PDP") 2017-2022, the government has adopted a planned, society-wide approach to address inequality, with the vision to recognize that growth is not an end in itself but a means to freedom from poverty and to human, economic, and social development. In addition to considering the entrenched unaccounted, accumulated and pass-through income and opportunities and constructing an equal opportunity and inclusive growth framework, the proposed measures outlined in the PDP to address inequality include: Labor Market. Increase employment quality and productivity levels and wages across the labor market, in particular, targeting more and better job opportunities for the economically inactive, discouraged workers, and the unemployed. Furthermore, the PDP also aims to support small producers in the informal sector and is of the view that heightened coordination in the Integrated Revenue Allotment Program will ensure that fiscal transfers by the government go to areas where poverty is most prevalent and where development was lagging behind. To ensure that inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, there is an enhanced emphasis on reaching into communities where out-of-school children are highly prevalent and provision of targeted programs reduced disparities in education in the form of educational subsidy and assistance to poor families. Lastly, one of the major strategies of the PDP will be the review of the current tax system and procurement of international funding, possibly with the assistance of value for money report produced by someone like RSM or other professional advisors. This is to shift the tax burden from the low-income groups to those with the ability to pay more and to develop a fair and progressive taxation system, coupled with the systematic process of proper tax collection and enforcement. By pursuing those key measures in constructing an equal opportunity and inclusive growth framework and understanding the dynamics and challenges posed by inequalities, it is believed that the Philippines is developing a clear pathway to transition from poverty reduction to poverty eradication.
Poverty in the Philippines Essay - Cram
Poverty is a common phenomenon, which affects human beings at various levels. In the currently developing society, there are many social problems that we are facing. Poverty is one of the major problems in the world. Unemployment and low-paid work are important determinants of poverty. People becoming unemployed or underemployed confront overwhelming financial odds resulting in deep emotional distress and the disturbance of personal relationships. In the Philippines, changes in the size of the population or in the quality of the population can influence the level of poverty. High levels of population growth can lead to high population density that places increased pressure on the environment. Also, a rapidly declining mortality rate and a high fertility rate would also lead to the high population growth. Furthermore, rapid population growth makes it difficult for the economy to improve and create employment because it slows down the pace of capital formation necessary to increase the level of output and employment. Uncontrolled levels of poverty can lead to massive environmental degradation such as deforestation, soil erosion and extensive loss of biodiversity. Also, the rural areas in the Philippines suffer from a lack of employment opportunities and such people who are unemployed in these rural areas will be in a lower income group. So most of the poor live in the rural areas and their production activities do not guarantee them or their families' year-round employment. Most farmers and fishermen, agricultural and fishery workers are considered underemployed because they could not find full-time work in their respective industries. Meanwhile, for those who are employed, especially in the agricultural sector, they would earn a very much lower income. This in turn result in low economic productivity, low family income, poor housing, malnutrition and overall poverty. Every year, the Philippines, particularly in the rural areas, continue to experience a consistently high poverty rate. The National Statistical Coordination Board reports that in 2012; despite the rising trend in employment for the country, poverty rate registered at 19.7% of the population. The main inequalities in the Philippines are in income. High levels of income are associated with higher education levels amongst household heads. Such people have better health because they can afford good health care. By contrast low levels of income and poverty are associated with greater risk of ill health and premature death. The risk of poverty has increased because unemployed people could not afford education for their children. Also, the digital divide plays a significant role in the present society. Many employment opportunities in the Philippines today can be found in the growing business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. However, this industry is concentrated in urban areas and multinational big firms. The people who are employed in this industry and receive a very much higher income would reside in the urban areas. On the contrary, those who cannot afford to have a good education or who are computer illiterate would be left behind in securing good employment in the urban areas.
The latter includes Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP), Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS), and Community Mortgage Program (CMP), among others. As mentioned earlier, the 4Ps is the Philippines' government's largest social protection program. It provides conditional cash transfer to poor households for a maximum of seven years, to improve the health, nutrition, and the education of the children aged 0-18. The program also invests in the capability building of the parents or the adult members of the family, hence benefiting more than 4.4 million households from 2011 up to now. The SLP meanwhile is a community-based capacity building program that seeks to improve the socio-economic capacity of the program participants. This is done through the provision of a starter kit to the chosen or approved project of the beneficiaries under the program. The main difference between the 4Ps and SLP with the latter, aside from the fact that it is not based on conditionality, is that the beneficiaries are given the freedom to decide on what they want for themselves first before the program community facilitators help them to select and execute projects that will be most suitable based on the identified needs of the community. The third key initiative is the Kalahi-CIDSS which is an anti-poverty program that aims to empower communities by addressing issues on poverty. The program gives the chance to the community people to identify what they think is the best solution to address their community needs. It also provides the community people with context-appropriate options from which they can freely select based on their own identified needs. The concerned poor residents of that particular community in the Philippines then may come together and select members who may want to become the leaders or facilitators under the program. Such people will form a group named Community Volunteers that will help to coordinate the activities all throughout the program. In so doing, the community as a whole will work hand in hand ensuring that the implemented projects, mainly infrastructures, are efficiently and well carried out till their completion. The completion and success of each sub-project or any other initiatives are then turned into community celebration in which a sense of pride and success may inspire another unity and cooperation among the community people. For the CMP, the program lowers the financial and the technical barriers faced by the low-income informal settler families in acquiring the legal ownership of a piece of land where they have chosen to establish their homes. It is through this program that these low-income Filipino families who are faced with a choice between paying a high rental fee of an informal settler's area and the alternative of being relocated outside the city that is far from their means of livelihood, can be helped. With these programs running to help tackle poverty, it is essential for the policymakers and the public in the Philippines to have a proper understanding of the complexities and the multi-dimensional nature of the problem. This not only restricts the focus on targeted interventions to address the link between poverty and unequal access to resources but also provides a widened horizon in generating policies that are not limited to short-term solutions and yet, sustainability and efficiency remain vital components.
In a titled released today, the World Bank said that the Philippines has made important gains in poverty reduction. Driven by high growth rates and the expansion of jobs outside agriculture, poverty fell by two-thirds—from 49.2 percent in 1985 to 16.7 percent in 2018. By 2018, the middle class had expanded to nearly 12 million people and the economically secure population had risen to 44 million.
Analyzing the distribution of income in the Philippines will take into account the notion of marginal productivity, as well as the social, political, and cultural context of the country. Sometimes referred to as the wage maximalist point of view, this approach to income distribution analysis suggests that those who do not contribute sufficiently to economic growth should not attain the same level of income as those who do. This economic rationalization of income imbalance can be extended to industrial differentiation where, because society requires different skilled labor to undertake a variety of roles, certain 'specialist' workers demand premium wages. However, it is often the case that the most exploitative and least equitable industries place little to no value on trying to minimize income inequality in this way. This approach to income distribution analysis is much more likely to focus on patterns of and conditions which perpetuate exploitation in the labor market. For example, attempts to try and see things from an economic egalitarian perspective might focus on the fact that ownership and management in the Philippines tends to be centered around a disproportionately small elite - a legacy of colonial rule and the derived power of foreign investment. Ergo, an economic egalitarian might say that this unjust distribution of wealth leads to wealth demanding social power, further entrenching the position of the elite and continuing the economic subjugation of the working class and poor. Such a defense of increased economic intervention in order to benefit workers in practice arises from the fact that the practice of pursuing ever greater economies of scale and exploiting a flexible labor market can exacerbate already existing income inequalities.