ocial Welfare
Secretary Esperanza Cabral has expressed surprise that lo-cal governments have
listed 700,000 families in Metro Manila as poor and are thus entitled to access
cards that will qualify them for the P18.25 rice sold by the National Food
Authority. The National Statistics Office, according to Cabral, places the
number of poor families, defined as those earning less than P5,000 a month, at
187,000 families.
How come the discrepancy? Cabral offered no explanation,
except by saying the lists submitted by the LGUs will have to be checked and
validated. Cabral did not jump to what appears to be the obvious conclusion,
which is that the LGU lists are "padded." And Cabral was correct in being more
understanding of the actual day-to-day economic pressures on poor urban families
than relying on cold statistics.
The metropolitan population is placed at 11 million. Assuming
an average family size of five, that figure gives 2.2 million families. A total
of 187,000 families represents 8.7 percent of the 2.2 million. That percentage
is one percentage point lower than the 9.7 percent poverty level in the 2000
family income and expenditure survey (the 2006 FIES has yet to come up with the
comparative figure). Given the government claims of a significant poverty
reduction, that 8.7 percent poverty incidence does not fall outside the bounds
of credibility.
So what do we make then of the 700,000 families listed by the
LGUs? These are families which have presumably applied for listing with their
barangays and the barangay officials, in turn, have checked that these families
are indeed poor by the standards of the community.
Here is where Cabral’s (and the government’s) headache comes.
It is easy enough for the statisticians to come up with P5,000 monthly income as
the poverty threshold. But Cabral cannot simply tell those families earning
marginally more than the threshold that, according to statisticians, they are
not entitled to P18.25 rice.
The difference between 700,000 families and 187,000 is
514,000. That’s 2.5 million people who would be cursing Gloria Arroyo and Cabral
for being cold-hearted and anti-poor.
We know Cabral (a former columnist of this paper) is not that
kind of person. We cannot say the same about her principal.
And when people start complaining about the officials’
indifference to their plight in the face of the grand thievery in government,
this administration is in trouble, big trouble.
The government might as well give access cards to all 700,000 families.
Funding for the cheap rice program can be found. It’s only a matter of
moderating the thieves’ greed.
