Carrying the cross for the poor - Leny Manalo In a pastoral statement issued two days before Ash Wednesday, the CBCP through its president, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas, called on the laity to fight “degrading and dehumanizing” poverty. The CBCP emphasized that the “appalling” poverty rate is aggravated by the exclusion of many Filipinos from gainful livelihood, sufficient shelter, rural development, adequate health care, quality education, and sustainable environment. In Pampanga, I am glad that Governor Lilia Pineda is now putting greater effort to provide more jobs by creating better business climate and to promote agriculture and family livelihood as solid base for economic sustainability. The province together with Bulacan, while ranking seventh and eighth respectively among the 10 least poor according to the National Statistical Coordination Board in the first six months of 2012, experienced increases in poverty incidence in the same period. Bulacan’s poverty incidence moved up from 4.6 percent to 5.4 percent, while in Pampanga it increased from 4.9 percent to 5.4 percent. In a related matter, the multi-awarded City of San Fernando, Pampanga, according to a May 2012 report by the NSCB, was among the bottom-dwellers among cities in the country in terms of per capita income in 2009. Former City of San Fernando Mayor and now Rep. Oca Rodriguez would probably dispute this with fresher estimates, but the blog site, Pinoy Money Talk, even expounded on it and said, “True, LGUs are not in the business of making money, but the data show how efficient (or inefficient) they are in using their Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) – or budget allocated to them by the national government – an how productive their initiatives are in generating economic activity in their city.” For President B.S. Aquino the reality of having an increasing unemployment rate despite the much ballyhooed economic uptrend was jolting enough to call for an en banc cabinet meeting early this year to ask what happened and what can be done. There is really something more than just individual best effort. There was a time when the so-called “trickle down” effect was the vision for popular economic development in the country that was copied from the US. Trickle-down economics and the trickle-down theory are terms in United States politics to refer to the idea that tax breaks or other economic benefits provided to businesses and upper income levels will benefit poorer members of society by improving the economy as a whole. The trickle as blindly venerated then proved too slow and failed to raise hope regarding poverty reduction in the country and reference to it was unceremoniously abandoned. Then came the inevitable globalization when developing countries like the Philippines started to lose import controls and have to compete at a disadvantage with dominant economies of the world. We now have an economy that leans heavily in favor of capital that goes against labor in its best effort to tag its export with the lowest price while at the same the time kills jobs as it imports more than it exports. While regularly proselytizing on job creation, the present economy has on the other hand fixed contractualization of labor as standard practice for companies causing perpetual underemployment and lack of stable jobs for the masses today. “A way has to be found to enable everyone to benefit from the fruits of the earth, and not simply to close the gap between the affluent and those who must be satisfied with the crumbs falling from the table, but above all to satisfy the demands of justice, fairness and respect for every human being.” (Pope Francis, Address to the Food and Agricultural Organization, 6/20/13) On the time of this writing this writer was all set to go to the Balete covered court in Hacienda Luisita to cover some cultural activity there intended to dramatize the continuing struggle of the farmers for their rights to the land they had tilled and worked on for generations. Their guest as announced would be the Miss Saigon musical star in London, Monique Wilson, the daughter of my friend, the late former Vice Mayor of Makati, Johnny Wilson. Carrying the cross for the poor comes in various ways. Pope Francis and the CBCP gave us the standard for this Lent and it is a revolution of the heart and a call for great sacrifice.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 02:39:04 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015