More poor and hungry amidst pending, continuing crises?

Millions of our people have been so used, so resigned to living in continuing crises --poverty, hunger, unemployment, homelessness, and more.

Disasters, like super typhoon Odette, and the pandemic have aggravated, deepened, and widened these multiple crises that continue to afflict millions of needy.

When they hear that there could be another pending food crisis, due to the impact of the crisis in Ukraine, most likely, like before, the poor will most probably shrug and ask, so what else is new?

Of course, for so long now, the present poor and those before them, have waited, have prayed for, have longed for respite and end to their crises. Until now, however, the needy still have to see their plight truly, genuinely alleviated.

In a recent report, the Commission on Population and Development noted that in 2015, the poverty rate stood at 23% and the pandemic caused the poverty rate to surge to 23.5% in 2021.

About 26.14 million Filipinos lived below the poverty threshold --an average monthly income of ?12,082 for a family of five.

Picture three million families reporting having experienced involuntary hunger.

If poverty and hunger will continue, Filipino children will grow up physically and mentally stunted. And the litany of woes heard for decades among the poor, affecting the poor will go on and on and on.

With millions of them reported to have been among the “landslide millions,” will their winning candidates end their multiple crises?

What do you think?

Will they see the promised P20 per kilo rice?

Many of those who reported experiencing involuntary hunger will say, even if the food prices, like rice, will be lowered, their plight won’t change at all because they have no money to buy any food!

Will the unemployed among them finally have stable jobs/reasonable wages to afford cheaper rice?

However, lower rice prices will adversely affect farmers, many of whom are also and already among the poor and hungry!

Expect more of our fisherfolks to be added as well to the number of poor and hungry, with present Department of Agriculture Secretary William Dar’s “import madness” or “midnight deal” recently criticized by Sen. Imee Marcos.

According to Imee, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on economic affairs, DA Secretary Dar signed last Monday “Administrative Order No. 10-2022 which allows the importation of 38,695 metric tons of small pelagic fish, like galunggong (round scad), sardines and mackerel without justifying the importation and ignoring, even without a cursory explanation, the recommendation of the National Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Management Council (NFARMC).”

Imee asked why the CNI (certificate of necessity to import) was issued by DA despite “the commercial fishing and aquaculture industry saying that there is no shortage in local fish supply” and despite the fact that “the closed fishing season is over and our local fishermen are back to their livelihood?”

Will genuine implementation of sufficient salary increases be among the early policies of the new administration?

Will transport drivers see lower prices of gasoline or the suspension of the excise tax? Or will more of them give up driving, join the ranks of the unemployed and/or the hungry?

Remember the staggering debt legacy of the Duterte administration? How will the new political leadership be able to pay these debts?

Will Filipinos already burdened with unbearable multiple crises be made to pay even more taxes?

How dare PhilHealth ask for more contributions from the ordinary Filipino when they have not yet at all explained/returned the millions of funds mismanaged by this agency!

Will the plight of the millions of poor/hungry Filipinos be a priority or the foremost priority of those given the so-called mandate of 30-million plus voters?