Committee on Poverty Alleviation Congressional Planning and Budget Research Department (CPBRD) Philippine Institute for Development Studies

(PIDS)

Forum on Chronic and Transient Poverty February 20, 2012, Monday, 1:30 PM, Mitra Rooms 1 & 2 OPENING REMARKS HON. RAYMOND DEMOCRITO T. MENDOZA CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON POVERTY ALLEVIATION Fellow legislators, Dr. Jun Miral of CPBRD, Dr. Celia Reyes of PIDS, guests, social partners, friends, good afternoon: We cannot escape the unpleasant reality that in our country, most of our citizens are always on the edge of financial and economic ruin. Our workers who are striving everyday just to feed themselves and their families are one of the sectors which remain vulnerable to financial and economic shocks. Retrenchments, unemployment, underemployment, low wages, lack of safety nets, health problems, accidents and disabilities are just some of the reasons that can pull a worker and his family further down into the slippery slope of poverty and destitution. The situation is much worse for those who lead a hard scrabble subsistence- without jobs, without a future, and without hope. The misery of those who belong to the class of the absolutely poor is apparent to all of us. We are committed to the elimination of absolute poverty in our country as we struggle to meet our own Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. Our real challenge is how to improve the financial and economic stability of the majority of Filipinos who are not financially independent, that is, those who are living day-to-day, without any substantial personal savings, without real and solid private properties and investments, and who are always worried

day and night about the uncertainty of their future, and the possibility of getting sick without any safety net except to rely on their equally poor relatives. Although Filipinos in general are optimistic, still every day, the brutal realities of subsistence in the country are crushing down many individuals and families. Our society is not founded on the idea and practice of welfare such as what we find in Nordic countries. Out ethic is dog-eat-dog or worse, beggar thy neighbour. We have no unemployment insurance. Each individual and each family must find a way to survive on their own amidst economic adversities. And when emergencies and contingencies of life happen as they do, many individuals and families easily find themselves slipping through the cracks. This requires government intervention in order to save them from sliding further to the bottom. The truth is that we need to go beyond the governments Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) at addressing poverty. It is true that cash transfers have been one significant addition to household income which enabled poor households to secure additional economic resources. Indeed, the CCT is a major initiative whose key results, we hope, will not just be in the more obvious areas of maternal health care and primary school participation. We believe that CCT is a foundation, but it is not the way out. For the long term, we have to lay the basis for a fairer, more decent society and genuine peoples empowerment. As we try to solve the problem of absolute and chronic poverty, we also need to reduce the high income gap in our country. We must achieve rapid, but inclusive development so that we can finally start a new chapter in our history as a nation where equity and social justice are not just empty words but a living practice. In this line, we firmly believe that the creation of decent jobs for all should be a top priority. By decent jobs we mean that workers can really meet not only their basic needs, but they can also have the opportunity to improve the quality of their lives, including that of their loved ones. Another critical intervention is the further expansion of sustainable and profitable livelihood programs for those who

want to become successful entrepreneurs. Let us re-build our country by tapping and harnessing the entrepreneurial spirit of our people. There are many examples of those who came from very modest beginnings, but through entrepreneurship have transformed themselves into successful citizens of our country. In relation to our work in the unions, we are committed to enlarge the participation of workers enterprises and workers cooperatives in the creation and democratization of wealth in our society. We still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do before we may witness the greatest miracle in our lives- the elimination of poverty in our country. This is why our forum today is an important contribution for us policy-makers in our duty to craft effective interventions to solve the problem of poverty- both chronic and transient in our country. I therefore encourage all of us to ask hard and difficult questions, most especially on the anti-poverty programs that we made and are now implementing, and the policies that we may roll-out in the future. In closing, it is my hope that we will learn vital lessons during this forum and that our resolve to end poverty in our society will be strengthened. Thank you dear colleagues and good luck to all of us.