Many are hungry, few are fed!

Having recently read and studied the Human Development Report for 2006, I came across the disturbing fact about the rate of Human Poverty Index of the Philippines which is around 15.3% of its total population and more disturbing is that rate of people living within $2 a day budget which is roughly around Php100 is 47.5%, in short, 47.5% of our total population to date live within a 100Php budget to survive. Imagine a budget of Php100 a day? No wonder that many are still hungry and only a few are fed.

With this rating, we are worse than Mexico (20.4%), Malaysia (9.3%), Thailand (25.2%) and Sri Lanka (41.6%). We are in the league of Indonesia (52.4%), Mongolia (74.9%), Bangladesh (82.8%). What is the implications of all this? Dire! It means that poverty and hunger is not being address adequately. I adequately because in fairness to the government, they are doing their best to alleviate poverty, but many according to the HDI report, are dying of hunger around the world, including the Philippines.

I surmised that in the Philippine context, no one has been recorded to die of hunger because if our abundant resources however, it is also recorded that many are hungry. Many are feeling the pangs of hunger every time they seek for a better life in the urban areas. Instead of a better life, due to their lack of skills and necessary educational requirements, they are wallowing in poverty in the slums of the metropolis. They are not perhaps dying but they feel hungry all the time. This will also explain why economic-related crimes are found to be proliferating in many metropolises in the country. This explains why ordinary men are transformed into ruthless killers, snatchers and robbers. It is because of poverty and hunger that made them become the worse enemy of the state but the bottom line is, can we blame them if their only motive is to alleviate the kind of poverty they have in their homes or shanties. This, coupled with other societal factors, has driven men to steal just to be able to get by in life.

Hunger, coupled with no access to potable water is very disastrous. According to the recent HDI 2006, 15% of Filipinos does not have adequate access to potable water. This is very discouraging considering that the Philippines, like many other coastal states, is abundant in water resources. Although we have enough water resources, we failed to maximize its contribution to our lives. If you go a remote barangay or town, you can still see the proverbial deep-well water supply or worse, you may get water from the flowing river or streams. This may be an abundant resource but how can it be safe and sanitary? If one gets the water they drink from deep wells that are near cemeteries or worse, damp sites, imagine what will be the implications. If they will not die of common diseases, they might contract diseases that can be easily remedied but the treatments are out of reach because the medicines are very expensive.

If you will try to study the medicines you buy over many pharmacies in the city, all of the reliable medicines are very expensive. Maintenance medicines for diabetes is very much expensive and insulin vial will cost you more over a period of time and compounding it is the very expensive professional fees of physicians and hospital bills. Imagine a person living within less than $2 a day, got sick and needs medications and hospitalizations, they are almost always relying on the services of quack doctors because a hospital stay is out of reach. Even the delivery of children in remote barangays will only take the services of untrained hilots, although many in the province are now trained courtesy of the IPHO and the UNICEF.

Another disturbing rating of the Philippines is its expenditure on health per GDP which is only around 1.4%. This means that for sometime, public hospitals will remain lagging behind major privately run hospitals and facilities and this could also be translated into something that will hamper the delivery of vital health services because of a minimal commitment by the national government towards public expenditures on health.

As I was saying, may are hungry and only very few are fed, but this is not the end of it all. There is still hope and optimism amidst the HDI Report which maintains that the Philippines is consistently ranked 84 from among 177 countries around the world. The optimism is that we have more opportunity to improve and climb higher in the index and by it, carries the ultimate victory of every Filipino against poverty and hunger. We must institute reforms to make our country work according to the demands of the people. Reforms which might be bitter to swallow but nevertheless, needed for us to fully be healed and survive.