Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Oledan: Perfect inequality
By Radzini Oledan
Slice Of Life
NOTHING could probably come as a shock than watching images in the television where farmers have to look for field rats for their family to eat, or of young men selling their kidneys for a paltry amount or of mothers trying to sneak out food from an establishment, or even resort to selling their babies just for their family to survive.
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 need not be an official acknowledgement of mass hunger and poverty in the country, a fact that majority of the population has to contend with for several decades.
The number of Filipinos who said they went hungry rose to a record high with nearly 17 percent of people surveyed saying they had nothing to eat at least once over a three-month period.
In a separate survey, the Social Weather Stations (SWS) found that those who describe themselves as living in poverty rose to 57 percent from 49 percent in the previous quarter. The proportional figure, or an estimated 2.8 million families going hungry has been in the double-digits ever since the second quarter of 2004.
Many of poor families are resorting to innovative means just to survive. With a meager income that effectively disables them to provide for humane housing condition, decent food on the table and other basic services have become an unattainable dream.
About 40 percent of all Filipinos -- 5.14 million families or over 31.2 million people -- live on P32 or less a day. The Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) has prepared a menu of what it calls the "national food threshold" that costs about P22 a day per person. This includes a cup of rice, a slice of fruit, a third to half a cup of green, leafy vegetables, and a glass of whole milk.
The FNRI also recommends that mothers serve their children fish, poultry or meat three times a week. For many poor families, however, even these basics are difficult to meet. Some, as the report shows, now eat only twice daily. Others have resorted to giving up some of their children to the care of relatives.
In order to subsist, many poor families resort to eating rice with salt, soy sauce or coffee. Lucky are those who can afford to buy instant noodles, few vegetables, fish or meat with their rice.
For the majority, life is a daily struggle to survive in conditions of relentless poverty. Day after day, individuals and communities are denied the opportunities they need to lead healthy and productive lives.
People living with chronic hunger exist in conditions of severe poverty. What they lack is the chance to change their situation, to develop their own self-sufficiency. The most potent confirmation of this fact can be seen in the lives of women. They, along with their children, are the main victims of hunger, and they are also most lacking in opportunities to end their own and their families' hunger. Society holds women responsible for all the key actions required to end hunger: family nutrition, health, education, food production and now, family income. Yet women are systematically denied the resources, information and freedom of action they need to carry out their responsibilities.
Poverty is linked not only with poor national economic performance but also with an unequal distribution of income and a political structure that renders the poor powerless, whether in a democracy or a dictatorship.
Plotted on the economic scale, this situation represents perfect inequality. Or maybe we could just resort to redefinitions?
For comments, email roledan@gmail.com
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (July 5, 2006 issue)
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