Poverty and income inequity in Philippine society
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- Nearly 1 million Filipinos
‘starving’
- AFP, The Straits Times, [5 April 1998].
Nearly a million people in the southern Philippines face
severe food shortages due to crop failures. El Nino.
Government relief.
- Millions lack food in RP's next food
basket, says study
- By Jowel Canuday, PDI Mindanao Bureau, 8 April
1999. Davao City, Mindanao, which Estrada vowed to
transform into the country's next food basket, is
suffering from shortage in rice for the last three years
and from chronic hunger. The growth in the supply of rice
could barely catch up with the growth in Mindanao
population. Poverty.
- No longer the promised land
- By Luz Baguioro, The Straits Times, 12 July
2000. Rubbish heaps in the Philippines, on which thousands
of people live as scavengers, have become breeding grounds
of filth, disease and crime. Philippines' version of
ghettoes
, where hundreds of thousands eat, sleep
and make a living in a sea of trash.
- Manila's data on jobless ‘hides
the real picture’
- The Straits Times, 19 December 2000. Nearly
one out of three Filipinos was out of work if we include
unpaid family workers
and own account
workers, both groups having little if any income.
- Poverty still a growing problem in the
Philippines
- By Joseph Yu, IBON Features, 5 July 2002. Despite her
promise to alleviate the condition of the poor, President
Arroyo seems to be losing the battle against poverty.
Most Filipino families do not earn enough to make ends
meet; wages are inadequate compared with what a family
needs just to survive. This is because government is
dead-set on keeping living standards, and wages, down in
order to keep the country
competitive
and attract
foreign investors.