MISREADINGS
Anti-poverty or poverty-creating
The idea is simple and noble, minimize poverty incidence or eliminate poverty. Although a simple idea, the process towards achieving it is undeniably complex. This is the reason why poverty alleviation or poverty eradication initiatives are viewed as a significant undertaking.
In a community in urban Iloilo City, I once asked a woman named Cora if she is aware that there exists a poverty alleviation project (not an anti-poverty program for ‘anti’ means negative to the positive minded civil society people) in their area which is aimed to address her family’s sad and poor state.
Surprisingly, she is not even mindful what poverty means and what poverty alleviation effort is all about. I translated the term in a local language which proved useful to her. So with a teasing tone, she asked: if we are described as that what now are the solutions being offered by poverty alleviation program and how much it costs?
This experience alone would make one realize that there are more people who wallow in poverty yet are not aware of the solutions being presented by either the government through its massive poverty alleviation programs or that which are formulated by experts from non-government organizations and implemented in the grassroots level.
Indeed, the poor Filipinos who are gripped in the vicious cycle of indebtedness have become more conscious about how much cost solutions to poverty will demand from them. For instance, in the case of Cora, she has acquired debts to pay for other debts that she had contracted in order to survive each day.
The practical question as to how much solving poverty will cost her brings to the fore of moral debate the concepts behind the idea of poverty eradication methods like the Conditional Case Transfer (CCT) and the ingenious Poverty Eradication and Alleviation Certificates (PEACe Bonds).
Both of these methods have been claimed necessary and hailed successful by its proponents citing the experiences from other developing nations. However, the immediate relief that it offers will have a hefty cost on the Filipino taxpayers including the poor, for whether we like it or not, we will be paying for these initiatives as it is financed through debt. The CCT is covered by a loan amounting to $400-million from the Asian Development Bank while the P10-billion zero-coupon PEACe Bonds adopted in 2001 will demand a heartbreaking P35 billion of taxpayers money to its holders next year.
Both these concepts have been justified by similar arguments: First, that it is necessary in order for the government to meet its Millennium Development Goals of halving poverty or of at least reducing poverty. PEACe Bonds nine years ago; CCT today as we are coming five years closer to the MDG deadline.
Second, that it will provide immediate relief to the poorest of the poor for the administration preceding the current one has brought the nation deeper in poverty as a result of its abuses and corruption. It was said about the PEACe Bonds after Joseph Estrada was ousted from power for plunder charges. It is being said today by the Aquino administration about Gloria Arroyo so we have the CCT.
Third, that our poorest of the poor could no longer wait on the implementation of the current administration’s comprehensive anti-poverty program. Again, Gloria Arroyo and the proponents of the PEACe Bonds in her cabinet at that time also said the same. Anti-poverty is at the heart of Noynoy Aquino’s agenda yet a comprehensive program that will address poverty remains in the making.
Lastly, the PEACe Bonds then was dubbed as a long-term poverty eradication strategy. So nine years of PEACe Bonds is a short period to eradicate poverty. Our poverty situation has worsened today in spite of the fact that under the nine-year rule of Gloria Arroyo, the PEACe Bonds was fully operational and poverty eradication effort uninterrupted. Program implementation continues until the present.
In contrast, the CCT is considered a short stop-gap measure preferably called “poverty containment strategy.” Some of its defenders though is not so sure yet how short the period that this strategy will be able to contain poverty. The elucidating statements coming from the quarters pushing for CCT reveal that the Aquino administration does not have a concrete approach on this strategy aimed to contain poverty especially on its debt-creating character.
The Aquino administration blames Gloria Arroyo for bringing our nation deeper in poverty yet it is adopting an anti-poverty scheme developed and approved by Gloria Arroyo. It criticizes the Arroyo administration for being debt dependent yet the immediate relief that it provides to the poorest of the poor is financed by the lending institution that coddled the corruption of Gloria Arroyo.
The Aquino administration has all the anti-poverty experts in its ranks. I believe it is time for Noynoy Aquino to come up with its own anti-poverty program, one that is preferably not debt creating, in order to provide long term relief to the poorest of the poor and free our nation from the chains of debt. If the CCT is an excellent method, just like how the PEACe Bonds was excellently packaged and defended before, may these arguments serve as a challenge to those who can justify its usefulness.*
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