Barretto, Jose Alberto Christopher D.

14-0235
M/TH (3:00pm-4:30pm)
POVERTY

Millions of people in the world are dying because of poverty. Millions are living

in poverty, but what is poverty? According to the dictionary, poverty is the state of

being extremely poor, the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount.

Poverty is the general scarcity or dearth, or the state of one who lacks a certain amount

of material possessions or money. There are three notions of poverty. The Poverty

incidence, the Poverty Threshold, and the poverty reduction. The Poverty incidence is
the proportion of families with per capita income less than the per capita poverty
threshold to the total number of families. Poverty Line or Poverty Threshold is the cost

of the basic necessities such as food and non food requirements. It can also be

interpreted as the minimum income required for basic necessities. Poverty Reduction

describes the various methods that will diminish the people living in poverty. Poor
refers to the families whose income are below the poverty threshold or the people who
cannot manage to provide basic necessities for themselves. The Poverty Line computes
this by determining the cost of necessities per region divided by the percentage of
budget allocated for food. According to dosomething.org, Almost half the world (over 3

billion people) live on less than $2.50/P117 a day. The GDP (Gross Domestic Product)
of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth
of the world’s 7 richest people combined. Nearly a billion people entered the 21st

century unable to read a book or sign their names. Less than one percent of what the
world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the
year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen. 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in
the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe

water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before

they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).

Today, around 21,000 children die every day around the world. That is equivalent

to: 1 child dying every 4 seconds, 14 children dying every minute, A 2004 Asian

Tsunami occurring every 11 days, An Iraq-scale death toll every 19–46 days, Just under

7.6 million children dying every year and some 92 million children dying between 2000

and 2010. In the world, there are approximately 2.2 billion childred and almost 1 billion

of them are living in poverty. There are approximately 121 million children who are out

of education worldwide. With these in mind, the silent killers are poverty, hunger,

easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. Despite the scale of

this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-

time, headline coverage.

But what does it mean to be poor? How is poverty measured? Third World
countries are often described as “developing” while the First World, industrialized

nations are often “developed”. What does it mean to describe a nation as “developing”?

A lack of material wealth does not necessarily mean that one is deprived. A strong
economy in a developed nation doesn’t mean much when a significant percentage of
the population is struggling to survive. According to global issues, “Successful

development can imply many things, such as: An improvement in living standards and

access to all basic needs such that a person has enough food, water, shelter, clothing,

health, education, etc; A stable political, social and economic environment, with

associated political, social and economic freedoms, such as (though not limited to)
equitable ownership of land and property; The ability to make free and informed choices
that are not coerced; Be able to participate in a democratic environment with the ability
to have a say in one’s own future; To have the full potential for what the United Nations
calls Human Development: “Human development is about much more than the rise or

fall of national incomes. It is about creating an environment in which people can

develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs

and interests. People are the real wealth of nations. Development is thus about

expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value. And it is thus about

much more than economic growth, which is only a means—if a very important one—of

enlarging people’s choices.” At household, community, societal, national and

international levels, various aspects of the above need to be provided, as well as

commitment to various democratic institutions that do not become corrupted by special
interests and agendas.”

In the US, President Obama encouraged other world leaders to invest in

eliminating poverty. According to new york post, “Obama committed the United States
to a 15-year global plan that will cost trillions of dollars to reverse poverty and
reminded world leaders the administration has already put forward more than $100
billion to save lives.” “Poverty, growing inequality exists in all of our nations, and all

of our nations have work to do. And that includes here in the United States,” he said. I
believe that I am on Obama’s side because majority of the population of the world has
been in poverty for far too long and I believe that it is time to make a change and make a
big impact on the world, to make the world a better place and to significantly put a stop

to all the suffering that poverty has caused to the people.

Pope Francis has always been someone who I admire and I idolize in terms of making
the world a better place to live in. These words from Pope Francis can help us to reflect
more deeply on how our experience of God’s love can open our hearts to solidarity with
our neighbors, and move us to action. “Poverty calls us to sow hope…. Poverty is the

flesh of the poor Jesus, in that child who is hungry, in the one who is sick, in those

unjust social structures.” (Pope Francis, Meeting with Students of Jesuit Schools—

Q&A, 6/7/13) I agree with Pope Francis saying that poverty calls us to sow hope, it

calls us to make action to help the poor, feed the hungry, cure the sick. Poverty

shouldn’t stop us from helping, it should help us help the poor. “The times talk to us of

so much poverty in the world and this is a scandal. Poverty in the world is a scandal. In

a world where there is so much wealth, so many resources to feed everyone, it is

unfathomable that there are so many hungry children, that there are so many children

without an education, so many poor persons. Poverty today is a cry.” (Pope Francis,

Meeting with Students of Jesuit Schools—Q&A, 6/7/13) I think that what Pope Francis

is saying is true and that I agree that with so many resources in the world , there are so

much people who are suffering in poverty. Each and every one of us can be rich and

equal. Power, greed and money is what makes the world suffer. “Among our tasks as

witnesses to the love of Christ is that of giving a voice to the cry of the poor.” (Pope

Francis, Address to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 6/14/13) This means that as

Christians, we should be helping the poor, not snobbing them or ignoring them. We

should be the voice of their misery, their cries. We should be doing something for them

in order to help them strive for a better future.

In Asia, according to the economist on economist.com, “Asia’s rapid economic growth

has put it on track to eradicate “extreme” poverty, defined by the World Bank as daily

consumption of less than $1.25 per person, by 2030. However, the Asian Development

Bank reckons this is too low given that nowadays, things like mobile phones are seen as
necessities; so it has calculated a more suitable daily minimum of $1.51. This lifts

Asia’s 2010 poverty rate to nearly one-third of the population, adding 343M people to

the ranks of the poor. The ADB believes food insecurity, and the risks of natural

disasters, global economic shocks and the like, should also be taken into account when

measuring poverty. This would further raise Asia’s 2010 poverty rate, to nearly 50%.”

With this in mind, I believe that what the economist stated is true. It would be

hard for the above to happen because in our present generation, there are a lot of basic
necessities that a single person should have and these necessities are what makes it hard
for people to decrese their daily consumption as of today. Now, How is Asia and the
Pacific Region Compared with the Rest of the World? According to Guanghua Wan and
Iva Sebastian, “Asia and the Pacific region remains home to the largest number of the

world’s poor. By applying the elasticity approach to other regions using poverty

elasticity of Iradian (2005), growth rates from the World Development Indicators, and

the 2005 poverty estimates from PovcalNet, one can calculate poverty shares by

continent (Table 13). Based on these broad estimates, 63% of the world’s extreme poor

lived in Asia and the Pacific region in 2008. This is much larger than Sub-Saharan

Africa (33%). Relative to 2005, Asia and the Pacific region’s share dropped by a little

over 4%, while Sub-Saharan Africa gained by almost 4%. Poverty reduction in Sub-
Saharan Africa remains slow and unlikely to reach the 2015 Millennium Development
Goal poverty target. While the headcount ratio (HCR) for SubSaharan Africa declined

by 4 percentage points, the number of poor fell by only 6.7 million”

In the Philippines, The poverty situation in the Philippines is worsening.

According to Celia M. Reyes, “Both poverty rate and magnitude are increasing based

on the official estimates. Poverty incidence among population, though fell from 33.1

percent in 1991 to 24.9 percent in 2003, rose to 26.4 percent in 2006 and then inched up
further to 26.5 percent in 2009. The number of poor which has risen by about a million
in a span of three years necessitates effective poverty reduction strategies that can
prevent such a huge movement into poverty. These recent poverty estimates show that

at the current rate of progress, the MDG target of halving the poverty rate may not be

achieved by 2015.” This article was released on 2012, stating that halving the poverty

rate in the Philippines may not be achieved by 2015 yet, it is already 2015 and the

poverty rate in the Philippines is still not halved.

According to philstar, Philippine poverty incidence rose in the first half of 2014.

“Fast-rising food prices and the devastating effects of Super Typhoon Haiyan (local
name Yolanda) caused an increase in poverty incidence in the Philippines in the first
half of 2014, said local authorities today. The poverty incidence among Filipino

individuals and among families increased to 25.8 percent and 20 percent respectively

during the period, according to the National Economic and Development Authority.”

Economic Planning Secretary, Arsenio M. Balisacan, said per capita income in the first

half of 2014 rose by 6.4 percent compared to the same period in 2013. Per capita

income increased by 7.3 percent in the lowest 30 percent of income-earners. “ Per

capita income data in 2014 show that economic growth has benefited the lower income
groups, including the poor. This means that the twin strategies of encouraging
investments and production alongside the implementation of a large-scale income
redistribution program have worked,” said Balisacan. However, the country's inflation

rate hovered near the higher- end of the inflation target in the first half of 2014. The

consumer price index for food went up to 6.5 percent and 2.7 percent for the non-food

items in the same period. These eroded the growth in per capita income of Filipinos.

Rice prices posted a double-digit growth of 11.9 percent in the first semester of 2014

from only 1.7 percent in the same period in 2013, on the back of a tight supply given
lean harvests coupled with less imports. Higher food prices resulted in a huge increase

in poverty thresholds. Food poverty threshold rose by 9.5 percent while overall poverty

threshold increased by 9.4 percent year-on-year in the first six months of 2014. Ten out

of the 17 regions experienced double-digit increases in their poverty thresholds. The

Philippines should start learning on how to quickly recover from natural disasters such
as super typhoons. Since super typhoon Yolanda arrived, we still have not fully

recovered from what has happened. Even up until today, a lot of people are still

suffering in poverty from what the Super typhoon did.

For so long, the Philippine education system has been very inadequate. All over

the country, there have been a lot of public schools and in each of these public schools,
there have been only a few number of teachers and only a handful of those are the good
ones, while each teacher would normally teach around 60-80 students daily and this is
because there are exceeding amounts of children in the public schools and a short
number of teachers to teach them. One solution to this is to build a program wherein we
build a committee and an organization that aims to lower the percentage of poverty in
the Philippines, build better, bigger, more effective public schools with more, high

quality, educated teachers that are paid the right amount of salary to balance out their

hardwork. This committee will not only improve our education system, but also help

abolish poverty in the country. Having expert or high quality teachers, we would satisfy

the needs of many students from public schools and we would make the students ,

especially the children, more intelligent, more charismatic, learn how to properly speak

our mother tongue and even learn how to speak proper english. We would teach them

all the basic lessons of all the basic subjects that a child should learn. This would

eventually lead to children of the public schools to grow up as an intelligent , practical

and open-minded person that could help with the country’s problem of poverty by
getting a decent job, and make a living, thus significantly reducing the number of

people living in poverty.

The people of the private sector could help in this program by investing or
joining the organization to find the said type of teachers and implement them to the
program. These would help in funding the program so that it could be continuous and it

could be more and more effective throughout the years. Other people of the private

sector could simply apply to be a teacher. This would aid in the scarcity of teachers in
public schools and it would help reach the goal of having high quality teachers to teach
the children. Other members of the private sector can also donate or invest in the

program, so that the committee would have the funds to build the desired amount of

public schools all over the country.

The CEOs of the firms or the firms themselves in the Philippines could
contribute in achieving this program the same way the people of the private sectors
could. Private firms like Meralco could lower the rate of their electricity, in order for

everyone, especially the poor, to save more money and fully pay their bills. They could
invest in the program to aid the committee or they could donate funds to the program in
order for the committee to build schools, commemorating them if they do. They could
help contribute as well if they advertise the program or become partners with the
committee, in order to let the people know more about the program and thereby

influence people to join the organization and strive towards one goal.

The industry associations of the Philippines could help contribute to the program
by simply offering their help in completing the program. For example, the
Metalworking industries could donate metal to build the infrastructure of the public
schools that are to be built. Others can be partners with the committee so that members

of the committee and teachers of the public schools would have the right beneficiaries.

The Non-governmental organizations in the Philippines could aid in developing

this program in ways such as simply supporting the program and its committee and
organization. Some members of the NGOs could even join the committee’s organization

themselves and help think and make of ways on how we could abolish poverty.

Families in the Philippines could contribute to the program by just morally

supporting it and join the organization. Be one with all the other families, rich or poor.
Strive towards one goal of abolishing poverty in the Philippines and go against the
people who will be against the program.

Students could join the organization and share the knowledge they have and the
informations they learned to the students of the public schools, by attending programs

within the organization that will interact with the students of the public schools, teach

them their ways as a student and as a person.

I myself, as a student, could simply try my best to implement this program and

to make this program successful and effective. I will do my best to significantly reduce

the percentage of poverty in the Philippines, attend the programs in the organization and

of course, try to be the light which will guide the poor to a better future.

With all these contributions, the program could fully reach its capabilities and

make a really big impact on the country, which can eventually spread worldwide. All
the funds and the support will go straight to the betterment of the society and the
addition of better, larger, more efficient public schools, with more teachers who are

higher in quality in terms of teaching and of knowledge. In due time, within three years,
if all these contributions and plans happen, the percentage of uneducated children would

significantly decrease and the chances of having an intelligent, efficient and almost zero

poor people in the future would significantly increase.

With all these being said, the world would be a much better place if it had no

connection to Power, greed, money. Money is what makes people hungry, it is what

makes people greedy, not to share their wealth to others because they know that if you

have no money, then you wouldn’t be able to survive in this world. Money is what

makes someone powerful, it is what controls people and what forces them to do actions

that they are not willing to do. If we want to remove poverty, then we should remove

the significance of money but still have the proper way of living, not go wild and

chaotic.

References
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Catholics Confront Global Poverty,. (2015). Quotes About Poverty From Pope
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Dosomething.org,. (2015). 11 Facts About Global Poverty | DoSomething.org
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Wan, G. (2015). Poverty in Asia and the Pacific: An Update (1st ed.).
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