Rising prices of fuel raised the poverty rate to 17 percent from 12 percent in just about over one month.

Poverty as defined by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank represent people who earn less than one dollar a day.

To help address the problem, Domingo F. Panganiban, the wizard largely responsible for a rice surplus in the time of Ferdinand Marcos, and now head of the anti-poverty commission, has come up with common-sense solutions that do not require investments.

A few of the measures include finding people who are willing to be trained and organize small business later. He explained that gainful employment is not the easy solution in this time of serious crisis.

He has sent out his people to the squatter colony of Baseco asking them what they prefer to be trained in. All of them want to do something to make a living but don’t know how.

He sends some to TESDA for training on welding. Carpentry, masonry among many.

He and explained that after a jobless man is trained in welding, the likehood is that he will set up a small welding shop and make a living.

The little capital need for this specific project is sourced from micro-lending operations.

He said that Tesda also trains jobless people on cellular phone repair. After learning the business, the trained man will spread word that he can do the job in his home, shanties or lean-to in most cases.

Those who are willing to operate mobile restaurants get cooking lessons also from the Tesda. He pointed out that he will get the cooperation of local government units to allow mobile restaurants for as long as sanitary requirements are met.

He said he has begged city mayors and mayors of Metro Manila to exempt mobile restaurants from paying for a business permit to operate on condition that they can show a certificate that they get reasonably extensive training from the TESDA.

So far, however, Panganiban said the most successful is reflexology. He said a small business man operates at least 20 massage centers in Quezon City. The masseuses charged a fee that totally depends on the time spent massaging the legs, arms, backs of the human body.

The operator gets a share of the fee. He said the masseuses make a little more than the average wage in Metro Manila.

A trained cellular repair man gets an average fo P180 a day but does not work eight hours required by law to be entitled to legal minimum wage.

After doing an extensive survey Panganiban said he discovered that there are at least 10 priority provinces where most of the efforts and programs of the anti-poverty commission should be concentrated.

The provinces are Masbate, Camarines Norte, Mountain Province, Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur, Agusan, Zamboanga Sibugay, and Sulu.

The basic problem in the provinces is food. Having very little education, they hardly know that around their small homes food or vegetables is abundant. He encourages families to plant vegetables, particularly malunggay.

A good volume of vegetable seeds are donated by commercial vegetable farmers.

Before all these happened, he set up a community based monitoring system in cooperation with De La Salle University and the Philippine Institute for Development Studies under the National Economic and Development Authority.

Panganiban’s office also encourages small low-middle communities with 30 to 35 homes to join car pools that, in the case of North Quezon City, brings the workers to the MRT station near Shoemart.

Those who work in Makati City are encouraged to walk to their offices after getting off at the MRT station along EDSA.

Panganiban said he noticed that even the low middle class is competing with the poorest of the poor in buying rice at the subsidized price of P18 per kilo. A few small one-hectare subdivisions in Quezon City and other parts of Metro Manila have asked him to intercede with the National Food Authority for regular rice rations at P18 per kilo.

"They are low-middle class people who have jobs but find it difficult to make both ends meet made difficult by rising prices of basic commodities," Panganiban said.

According to Panganiban, he also created a team that fans out to poor areas and explain to residents not to rely heavily on government to survive.