Nearly two decades ago, world leaders met at the
headquarters of the United Nations in New York City to define anew the
international body’s role at the turn of the 21st century. It was the largest
gathering of world leaders in history as of 2000.
How important was the gathering? The advent of the new
millennium presented “a unique and symbolically compelling moment to articulate
and affirm an animating vision for the United Nations,” a UN General Assembly
resolution stated.
The Millennium Summit lasted for three days from September 6
to 8, 2000. At the end, it ratified the United Nations Millennium Declaration,
which contained the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Commonly referred
to as the UNMDGs, the vision hailed eight human development milestones which forged
for the first time consensus among nations on more fundamental social reforms.
First of the eight goals is to eradicate extreme poverty and
hunger. With 36 percent of the global population then reportedly earning less
than $1.90 a day, poverty stood out primarily among the major global concerns during
the crossover to the third millennium.
The other goals were: (2) Universal Primary Education, (3)
Gender Equality and Women Empowerment, (4) Reduced Child Mortality, (5) Improved
Maternal Health Care, (6) Combatting HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, (7)
Environmental Sustainability, and (8) Global Partnership for Development.
The cut-off year for substantially meeting the UN Millennium
Development Goals was year 2015. But three years since, intense deprivations
among the masses remain pervasive in Sub-Saharan Africa and the developing
countries of South and East Asia. The concerns addressed by the UNMDGs,
especially that of extreme poverty and hunger, promise not to be resolved in
any immediate future.
Over the years after the conclusion of World War II, indigence
of the masses would be a perpetual reality in the Philippines, which for a long
time, especially during the authoritarian rule of Ferdinand Marcos, was tagged by economic analysts as “the basket case” of Asia. One of the
expectations in the broad struggle to end his regime was the alleviation of
severe poverty around the country.
The Marcos dictatorship was ousted by a brief civilian
uprising called People Power revolution in 1986. In the transition to the full restoration of liberal
democratic rule, President Cory Aquino declared war against poverty. The move
may not have been backed up by a promise of meaningful change in the prevailing
social structure, but it put the issue of the Impoverishment of millions of
Filipinos on top of the national agenda.
The initiative prevailed over the years as one of the
country’s top priorities. It would not be overridden by other concerns, no
matter how presumably most pressing. The issue of poverty gained prominence
again in the strategies for development of the administrations of Fidel V.
Ramos and Benigno S. Aquino III, which made inclusive growth a standard criterion.
Inclusive growth meant that the bottom 40 percent of the
population should not be left behind in the economic rise of society, but
should also be able to equitably partake in its fruits.
Mass poverty is a complex social ill that may not simply be
cured by creating jobs, fostering yearly high growth rate in the Gross Domestic
Product (GDP), doling out capital for livelihood generation some going to naught
anyway, or transferring cash to the poor. It is a malaise that stems from
social injustice and economic exploitation borne out by predatory practices in
production and markets.
And the reality of poverty shows manifold dimensions, like
lack of education, subhuman shelter, disenfranchisement, hunger, etc. demanding
each one’s distinct treatment.
There should be no illusion hence of eradicating poverty
under a social order still marshaled by classes and forces whose compelling interest
is to preserve the political-economic system that perpetuates misery. Those are
the oligarchs of finance, the trading tycoons, big foreign investors, their
domestic business counterparts, their landlord cohorts, the traditionally
moneyed elite, and political dynasties.
In the same breadth, there shouldn’t be any illusion either
on the dominantly rich 20 of international community dealing decisively with the stark inequality that
portrays poverty in the sharpest contrast, that is: the wealthiest of the globe
(so few they are said to fit in a single bus) controlling one half of its
income and resources, while the rest of the earth in their teeming billions
have to make do with the other half.
Only deep-going and comprehensive social change can make
poverty a thing of the past. But to be resigned about it and altogether forget the
vast masses who continue to suffer acute ill-being are not an option. Whether
or not the government can do anything about it, the eradication/reduction of poverty
should be pushed to the top of the social agenda. It should be constantly highlighted
as a goal this millennium has yet to accomplish both on the domestic and global
spheres.
There has been a tendency, particularly among politicians
who continually fail in the promise to improve the lives of the poor, to slip the
issue under the rug. They lack empathy, much more eagerness, in helping to solve
it. For many of them, planning and implementing anti-poverty initiatives only
gets in the way of everyone’s favorite modus operandi of doing projects to siphon money
from the public coffers to their pockets. The attitude that has inured among them is to shun anti-poverty
nonsense.
On the other hand, the past three years saw the war against
poverty side-lined by the concentration of government action and resources on
the overarching war on drugs of President Rodrigo Duterte. In fact, observers
deplored that with the extrajudicial killings of lowly folks in slums and misery-laden
fringes of urban centers, the presumptuous drive to curve narcotics and
criminality has redounded to a simple massacre of the poor.
The current period offers an auspicious time to put once
more the issue of mass poverty on top of the social agenda. The nation is
conducting its constitutionally mandated midterm elections, and politicos out
there who desire for lucrative seats in government are wooing again voters with
sweet promises of the greater good. Placing the certified global concern and festering
local reality squarely on the table, have them answer: what are they going to
do with the pervading problem of poverty, and is dealing with it important to
them?
By voicing out the issue of poverty and what to be done to
address it, the private sector most especially civil society pushes a platform
for the politics of genuine change. Such politics of genuine change is opposed to the mere change of political faces, names and
personalities in the usual merry-go-round of choosing from the same members of
the rich elite and family dynasties who shall hold power and corner economic
spoils for the next three years. The latter is the politics of elections Philippine style.
