From: GMA’s lowest rating: A wakeup call - BABE'S EYE VIEW By Babe Romualdez - The Philippine Star 06/05/2005
But our real problem lies in the fact that we have the worst fiscal situation ever since time immemorial because of the large government debt that as of February this year has already hit P4.08 trillion, a population that’s growing by leaps and bounds that could reach 160 million by 2030. As a matter of fact, at the Forum for Family Planning and Development which I attended the other day, it was disclosed that 11 million Filipinos are confirmed to be going hungry, 18 million are undernourished, and 25.4 million or about one third of the population live in extreme poverty and subsist on P34 per day.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Friday, April 29, 2005
Hunger affects 13 percent of Filipino households
PhilStar.com 04/29 /2005
MANILA (AP) - Hunger stalks 13 percent of all Philippine households, a survey by an independent pollster showed Friday.
The Social Weather Stations' survey of 1,200 adults in the first quarter of this year also showed 41 percent of all working adults worry a great deal about losing their jobs, with the highest proportion in the southern Philippines, home to a three-decade Muslim insurgency.
SWS said the survey shows that unemployment is "disastrous to family well-being," with hunger among families of the unemployed at 15.9 percent.
The World Bank said nearly half of the 84 million Filipinos live below the poverty line of 2 US dollars a day. Unemployment, according to government figures, reached 11.3 percent as of January this year despite promises of new jobs.
Of those who said they have experienced severe hunger-- defined as going hungry often or always in the last three months-- 12 percent are from families of the unemployed, 10.7 percent belong to families of the self-employed and 6.4 percent are from households of government employees.
The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.
MANILA (AP) - Hunger stalks 13 percent of all Philippine households, a survey by an independent pollster showed Friday.
The Social Weather Stations' survey of 1,200 adults in the first quarter of this year also showed 41 percent of all working adults worry a great deal about losing their jobs, with the highest proportion in the southern Philippines, home to a three-decade Muslim insurgency.
SWS said the survey shows that unemployment is "disastrous to family well-being," with hunger among families of the unemployed at 15.9 percent.
The World Bank said nearly half of the 84 million Filipinos live below the poverty line of 2 US dollars a day. Unemployment, according to government figures, reached 11.3 percent as of January this year despite promises of new jobs.
Of those who said they have experienced severe hunger-- defined as going hungry often or always in the last three months-- 12 percent are from families of the unemployed, 10.7 percent belong to families of the self-employed and 6.4 percent are from households of government employees.
The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.
Friday, January 21, 2005
Poverty to remain a serious problem in the Philippines: economists
MANILA : Poverty in the Philippines will remain a problem for years and government proposals to halve it by 2010 remain "unfeasible", according to economists. Former socioeconomic planning secretary and University of the Philippines (UP) economist Felipe Medalla was quoted in BusinessWorld newspaper as saying the government's failure to prioritize expenditures, given the little money it has, adds to the "improbability of resolving the poverty problem".
"Poverty will remain a serious problem in the Philippines for quite some time," Medalla said. "To begin with, it doesn't seem the government will be able to achieve its growth targets and it doesn't seem that it will be able to resolve its fiscal deficit." In 2003 government debt totalled 78 percent of gross domestic product while public sector debt stood at 138 percent of GDP. According to the World Bank some 51 percent of the country's 84 million people live on less than two dollars a day.
In a report on population and poverty published by the UP School of Economics last December it said that while countries like Thailand and Indonesia have managed to bring their population growth down over the past 30 years, the Philippines has not. It has been estimated that with the current rate of population growth of 2.3 percent the Philippine population could double within the next 30 years.
Channel NewsAsia
"Poverty will remain a serious problem in the Philippines for quite some time," Medalla said. "To begin with, it doesn't seem the government will be able to achieve its growth targets and it doesn't seem that it will be able to resolve its fiscal deficit." In 2003 government debt totalled 78 percent of gross domestic product while public sector debt stood at 138 percent of GDP. According to the World Bank some 51 percent of the country's 84 million people live on less than two dollars a day.
In a report on population and poverty published by the UP School of Economics last December it said that while countries like Thailand and Indonesia have managed to bring their population growth down over the past 30 years, the Philippines has not. It has been estimated that with the current rate of population growth of 2.3 percent the Philippine population could double within the next 30 years.
Channel NewsAsia
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Poor Filipinos reduced to eating garbage
By Neal Cruz - Inquirer News Service - Oct 22, 2004
TWO young children died the other day because they ate rotten food recovered from a garbage can and brought home by their father. Did you get that? Poor Filipinos have been reduced to eating garbage -- literally -- and are dying because of it.
As the cliché goes, they're caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. They'll die of starvation if they don't eat, but they'll die anyway if they eat the garbage that they are able to scrounge from the trashcans.
Can you see the irony? Officials of government financial institutions take home millions of pesos in salaries and politicians travel in style around the world and eat the most expensive steaks while their constituents eat garbage! Generals amass wealth and squirrel them away in other countries while the people whom they are sworn to serve wallow in poverty! Our own President travels all around the country and the world with a retinue, shakes hands and delivers speeches and cuts ceremonial ribbons, while her constituents living in appalling conditions not very far from Malacañan Palace are dying because they are forced to eat garbage!
Read more: Inquirer Opinion
TWO young children died the other day because they ate rotten food recovered from a garbage can and brought home by their father. Did you get that? Poor Filipinos have been reduced to eating garbage -- literally -- and are dying because of it.
As the cliché goes, they're caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. They'll die of starvation if they don't eat, but they'll die anyway if they eat the garbage that they are able to scrounge from the trashcans.
Can you see the irony? Officials of government financial institutions take home millions of pesos in salaries and politicians travel in style around the world and eat the most expensive steaks while their constituents eat garbage! Generals amass wealth and squirrel them away in other countries while the people whom they are sworn to serve wallow in poverty! Our own President travels all around the country and the world with a retinue, shakes hands and delivers speeches and cuts ceremonial ribbons, while her constituents living in appalling conditions not very far from Malacañan Palace are dying because they are forced to eat garbage!
Read more: Inquirer Opinion
Monday, November 01, 2004
There's The Rub : Hungry
By Conrado de Quiros - Inquirer News Service Oct 07, 2004
I FIRST heard it at a meeting with Sixto Roxas and several other economic experts. The crisis staring the country in the face, they said, was not really a fiscal or financial one, it was a social one. Specifically, it had to do with hunger. That was what the figures were showing, and that was more and more likely to happen over the next several months. It wasn't just that the banks would go kaput, it was that the people would go hungry.
Well, the papers have just confirmed what they've known all this time. The good news is that hunger reached its highest peak not during Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's term but Joseph Estrada's, or shortly after Estrada's. That was in March 2001, a couple of months after Estrada was overthrown, when the incidence of hunger reached 16.1 percent. Though that happened in President Arroyo's time, we may safely conclude it was still the product of Estrada's mismanagement, a euphemism for the mess he made of this country.
The bad news is that the second highest incidence of hunger happened during President Arroyo's time. The even worse news is that it happened two months into her second term. Hunger rose spectacularly. It did so as prices soared, putting food and other necessities beyond reach of the poor.
Read More - Philippine Daily Inquirer
I FIRST heard it at a meeting with Sixto Roxas and several other economic experts. The crisis staring the country in the face, they said, was not really a fiscal or financial one, it was a social one. Specifically, it had to do with hunger. That was what the figures were showing, and that was more and more likely to happen over the next several months. It wasn't just that the banks would go kaput, it was that the people would go hungry.
Well, the papers have just confirmed what they've known all this time. The good news is that hunger reached its highest peak not during Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's term but Joseph Estrada's, or shortly after Estrada's. That was in March 2001, a couple of months after Estrada was overthrown, when the incidence of hunger reached 16.1 percent. Though that happened in President Arroyo's time, we may safely conclude it was still the product of Estrada's mismanagement, a euphemism for the mess he made of this country.
The bad news is that the second highest incidence of hunger happened during President Arroyo's time. The even worse news is that it happened two months into her second term. Hunger rose spectacularly. It did so as prices soared, putting food and other necessities beyond reach of the poor.
Read More - Philippine Daily Inquirer
Sunday, October 17, 2004
The “Perfect Storm” that is about to hit the Philippines
Extreme poverty and hopelessness, the continued burden of rising costs, the utter lack of faith of people in their leaders, crime and corruption, the fiscal crisis — all these are combining in a force and fury crying out to explode in a perfect storm.
Read article of William Esposo of the Philippines Inquirer dated October 17, 2004
Read article of William Esposo of the Philippines Inquirer dated October 17, 2004
Saturday, September 18, 2004
Poverty in the Philippines
SAD STATISTICS
Despite the more-or-less sustained economic growth from 1985 to 1997, the poorest 20% of the population only improved their income 0.5% for every 1% growth in average income. In other words, they slipped further behind and income inequality became even more extreme.
MALNUTRITION and HUNGER
Despite the more-or-less sustained economic growth from 1985 to 1997, the poorest 20% of the population only improved their income 0.5% for every 1% growth in average income. In other words, they slipped further behind and income inequality became even more extreme.
MALNUTRITION and HUNGER
There are now approximately 4 million (32%) preschool children who are underweight-for-age, 3 million (20%) adolescents who are underweight-for-age, and 5 million (13.2%) adults who are chronically energy deficient. Vitamin A deficiency is a serious problem, with 7% of pregnant women and 8% of infants under six months being severely deficient. Iron deficiency anemia affects 57% of infants, 51% of pregnant women, and 46% of lactating women.
The primary cause of malnutrition is the inequitable distribution of food, which is related of course to poverty. The typical Filipino diet is grossly inadequate for energy and other nutrients, causing human bodies to compensate for inadequate energy intake by utilizing protein as an energy source; the usual result is PEM. This situation is unlikely to improve as long as an estimated 28 million Filipinos are unable to buy food to meet basic nutritional requirements.
Read More and click:
Clarence Henderson's Pearl of the Orient Seas
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Philippines is now a case of humanitarian disaster
Open letter to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from the Citizens Committee on the National Crisis
Dear Madam President:
The Philippines is now a case of humanitarian disaster. Late last year, the Food and Nutrition Research Institution of the Department of Science and Technology (FNRI-DOST) released a survey finding that “8 out of 10 households are hungry.” This is the first time, to our knowledge, that the government, through an important agency, acknowledged the fact that mass hunger -- and not only mass poverty -- now grips the lands.
The reported FNRI-DOST finding that 8 out of 10 households are hungry, if true, can only mean that the Philippines has become a case of humanitarian disaster warranting the urgent concern of the international community and a program of international aid and assistance.
The human dimension of the FNRI-DOST statistic is reflected in this news report: “Mothers now selling their babies, while fathers sell their kidneys, and farmers eat field rats.”
The FNRI-DOST finding, Madam President, was made public through the November 2, 2003, issue of Today, which front-paged the story. But that story didn’t elicit any public reaction, even from the media. Today appears to be the only paper that published it.
Dear Madam President:
The Philippines is now a case of humanitarian disaster. Late last year, the Food and Nutrition Research Institution of the Department of Science and Technology (FNRI-DOST) released a survey finding that “8 out of 10 households are hungry.” This is the first time, to our knowledge, that the government, through an important agency, acknowledged the fact that mass hunger -- and not only mass poverty -- now grips the lands.
The reported FNRI-DOST finding that 8 out of 10 households are hungry, if true, can only mean that the Philippines has become a case of humanitarian disaster warranting the urgent concern of the international community and a program of international aid and assistance.
The human dimension of the FNRI-DOST statistic is reflected in this news report: “Mothers now selling their babies, while fathers sell their kidneys, and farmers eat field rats.”
The FNRI-DOST finding, Madam President, was made public through the November 2, 2003, issue of Today, which front-paged the story. But that story didn’t elicit any public reaction, even from the media. Today appears to be the only paper that published it.
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Mission of Magpamana Ng Pagasa
1. To further the social, cultural, educational, economic, spiritual, emotional and general well being of the youth by promoting and organizing community improvement and personal character development activities;
2. To establish facilities for spiritual care and leadership training to: (a) impart basic Christian moral values among youth;and (b) equip the youth to become catalysts of positive change in their communities;
3. To support Christian ministries working to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ among: (a) the youth, (b) the "unreached" ethnic minority groups of the Asian nations;
4. To encourage, facilitate, administer, and manage gifts and donations to further the purposes and objectives of the foundation; and
5. To exercise any and all powers, rights and privileges to accomplish any of the purposes and objectives of the foundation.
2. To establish facilities for spiritual care and leadership training to: (a) impart basic Christian moral values among youth;and (b) equip the youth to become catalysts of positive change in their communities;
3. To support Christian ministries working to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ among: (a) the youth, (b) the "unreached" ethnic minority groups of the Asian nations;
4. To encourage, facilitate, administer, and manage gifts and donations to further the purposes and objectives of the foundation; and
5. To exercise any and all powers, rights and privileges to accomplish any of the purposes and objectives of the foundation.
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