On Poverty Reduction Topping the Socio-Political Agenda Once Again

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.