Anti-poverty czar urges PPI to help educate voters

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Press Institute (PPI) should perform the role of a change agent by educating voters to choose a leader in 2010 who would pursue a viable program to reduce poverty. In a speech delivered before the PPI recently, National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) Secretary Domingo F. Panganiban stressed the incoming president "should revive economic growth and advance social progress." A former agriculture secretary, Panganiban suggested the first duty of the next President would be to wage a relentless battle against poverty. "Over the past few decades, our society has increasingly shifted the burdens of the growing economy on the ordinary Filipino worker and his family. The result has been a disparate distribution of national assets-- a situation that has allowed a favored few to profit from the work of the many," he stressed. Officially, he added, 27.6 million Filipinos live below the poverty line, and "around 12 million of them live under conditions that approached extreme squalor, unable to earn enough for three square meals a day." Unofficially, 42 percent of Filipinos consider themselves poor and the number could climb as the country reels from the devastating impact of the collapse of investment banking houses on Wall Street. “The new President," Panganiban added, "must move away from subsistence and dependence toward asset reform, better basic services, more employment opportunities and stronger social development programs." He or she must crack down on corruption, use the law to jail violators while promoting measures to reduce graft and eradicate corruption, Panganiban argued. Corruption eats up bulk of public funds that could be used to generate jobs, equalize resource distribution and invest in programs that raise agricultural and industrial production. Panganiban urged the PPI to educate voters into selecting a leader who would ensure that jobs would not be lost, noting that shutdowns in many nations have reduced jobs available for overseas Filipino workers. Government has already created 81,689 jobs under the Comprehensive Livelihood and Emergency Employment Program (CLEEP) as of April 13, 2009, but more and more people are joining the industrial reserve army (IRA) that keeps wages down. "Our fourth point is social protection – a principle that is of central importance to the development programs of the Arroyo administration. Last year, the government invested P5 billion into conditional cash transfers for the poorest of the Filipino poor. We allocated P3 billion to assist lifeline consumers of electricity. We allowed P500 million in expenditures for elderly Filipinos not covered by Social Security System (SSS) and Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) pensions; and we spent another P500 million in livelihood loans for the families of impoverished jeepney drivers," he added. "We likewise signed, in December 2008, a $200 million loan agreement with the World Bank to support the government’s on-going anti-hunger and social protection programs. We must strengthen – and expand on – all these measures as we move to secure the welfare of even more Filipino families as the crisis deepens and its consequences become more apparent," Panganiban stressed. "The fifth and final point we wish to emphasize is the need to attain the Millennium Development Goals. Two millennium objectives – in particular –require our immediate attention: Goal Two, achieve universal primary education; and Goal Five, improve maternal health. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), around 10 Filipino mothers die every day from complications related to child birth. An estimated 473,000 more women throughout the country undergo abortions each year. Meanwhile, as of 2006, only eight of every 10 elementary-age Filipino children were in school. Nearly a third of all those who did go to school were expected to drop out before they reached the sixth grade," he said. - GMANews.TV