Poverty, Drugs and Natural Calamities

Poverty, Drugs, and Natural Calamities are the top three issues in the Philippines. The law enforcement agencies in the country claimed a relentless drive against illegal drugs. They conducted 81,000 anti-drug operations, arrested more than 119,000 drug suspects, and send more than 3,000 drug personalities to their grave. The total war against illegal drugs did not spare even the country’s Top Cop, who faced the Senate Investigation on Ninja Cops (Policemen who recycled confiscated drugs).

The Philippines Statistical Authority (PSA) reported that poverty incidence in the country was estimated at 16.1 percent compared to 22.2 in 2015. A large chunk of families uplifted. However, the multidimensional poverty index (MPI), a tool that measures deprivation, showed that the education dimension has the largest share. In other words, according to PSA, 5 out of 10 families were deprived of primary education. Imagine that several years from now, there will be more ignorant Filipinos.

However, it is the functional literacy that significantly matters. According to the PSA, functional literacy is the ability of an individual to use their skills in reading, writing, and numeracy that allow them to handle the daily demand of life. PSA data claimed that the national rating on functional literacy improved to 86.4 percent in 2008. Contrary to the data PSA released that functional literacy in the municipality of Saiyan, Zamboanga, at 87.5 percent, a separate study from World Vision revealed that a critical functional literacy rate of 44 percent for both boys and girls existed. The high rate of school drop is the primary cause of a low functional literacy rate.

The Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) identified the Philippines as the top nine most prone countries to natural disasters. More than 4 million Filipinos are facing natural disasters, which can destroy their livelihoods and end their lives. Every year disasters took turns in the Philippines, earthquakes, typhoons, or volcanic eruptions aside from armed conflict, and human-made disasters brought many destructions and miseries.

They said that if you reached the bottom, there is no way to go but up. However, the Philippines is descending into a bottomless pit. As the country continues to fall, not knowing if we are near the bottom, we asked the question: what are the causes of all these problems.

The Philippines several hundred years ago was a tropical paradise, lush vegetation, mild climate, absence of predators shaped friendly, honest, and gentle people. A unique society emerged with its culture, science, and arts. The people behind a flourishing society were highly civilized. One of their marvelous engineering achievements was to carve from the mountains the rice terraces. They fashioned gold and wove cotton textiles for exports. They were our forefathers. They were skilled mariners actively engaged in international trade who could use the stars and read the pattern of ocean streams to smoothly navigate between islands and open seas. Renowned as excellent seafarers, even the Chinese traders hire them as navigators.

Happy people do not make history. This was the situation of the Philippines at that time. Our forefathers, contented with their lives, were happy to live peacefully with the international community. An almost utopian civilization ended when the Europeans came more than 500 years ago. Today, if we believed that we are free to build our unique society as our forefathers did, we are wrong. The long and short of it is that foreign criminals since several hundred years ago to present take advantage of our kindness and hospitality compounded our problems in poverty, drugs and natural calamities.

Starting with the Spaniards who came with their gods, guns, and greed, enslaved the people, and introduced a different culture with their trinkets, bells and idols taught people more vices than virtues. For instance, most words in gambling such as pusta, taya, dehado, llamado are Spanish derivative words. The worst thing they did was to establish a system that made the rich richer and the poor poorer. The encomienda system that deprived our forefathers of their land and the fruit of their hard-labor was the predecessor of the hacienda system and capitalism. The present power of the oligarchy that controls both the economic and political system of our country was the product of the Spanish colonial system.

After more than 300 years of Spanish misrule, the uninvited Americans with the hypocrisy of their President, Woodrow Wilson, who claimed that God spoke to him, came to subjugate the Filipinos for the next fifty years. They introduce a more decadent culture of materialism. Until today, American corporations never ceased to inspire corporations to pillage the resources of the country. For instance, Inquirer reported that the Global Witness, a London based cause-oriented group revealed that in 2018, they recorded 30 killings in the Philippines directly related to land and environment activities, of which 15 were linked to agribusiness. The record made the Philippines the deadliest country for land and environmental activists. Specifically, they urged Dole Philippines to respect the indigenous community, the B’laan claim of the ancestral domain.

The Americans strengthen the Spanish colonial land system. During the American regime, sporadic peasant revolts, the Colorum, and the Sakdalistas erupted in several provinces. Nevertheless, instead of introducing social reform such as land distribution, the government send the local police and the Philippine Constabulary to quell these uprisings. After 80 years Filipinos faced the same situation. Even the Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano declared that the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) miserably failed in Hacienda Luisita. According to records, most beneficiaries have leased, mortgaged, or sold their lands through the program do not allow the transfer of land for the next ten years after the turnover. No less than the local politicians’ facilitated the selling of lands and in many instances, act as “arreindadors,” renters.

During WWII, the Filipinos fought “for” NOT “with” the Americans. There were more than 500,000 Filipinos who died for America. Total property destruction of the war ranged between $700 million to $1.5 billion. Before the Americans finally grant the promised Independence, they passed a new trade bill to suspend the rehabilitation funding until the Philippines allowed their industries unbridled access to the resources of the country for the next 20 years. Instead of helping the victim of their war, the brazen Americans would only release the rehabilitation funds on condition that the Philippines allow them to continue plundering the natural resources of the country. The government of Manila did not have any choice, signed the onerous trade pact that allowed the Americans to exploit the economic resources of the country. Thus, the Americans made the Filipinos whom they considered their “brothers-in-arms” an impoverished nation insisting that “beggars cannot be choosers.”

After the American granted the fake Philippine Independence, July 4, 1946, the social system in the country remained chaotic. The politician who inherited the mantle of power went immediately to the business of imposing the same system inherited from the Americans. The system turned the Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon (HUKBALAHAP) a World War II massed-based guerrilla movement to an armed group aimed to establish a socialist government. Later social injustices helped gave birth to the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (CPP-NPA). Although the government of Ramos tried its best to reach a peaceful agreement to the point of recognizing CPP as a political party 20 years ago, peace remained elusive. At the bottom the CPP-NPA revolution, the most prolonged armed struggle in Asia is traceable to the lack of social justice in the country-side.

Hence, there is no peace in our country. No government poverty program ever succeeded because we are still implementing the same economic system we inherited from the Spaniards, and the American materialism strengthened the system. Failures become cyclical. In fact, in the recent 2017 Nielsen Global Survey of Consumer Confidence and Spending Intentions, Filipinos came out as the most aggressive among global consumers. Materialism seeped in our culture.

Hedonism claimed that only pleasure is intrinsically valuable, though debatable, is a western philosophy of value. Thus a drug user on drugs is better than before ingesting the substance is a hedonist behavior, although again is debatable. However, pleasure-seeking, hedonistic culture is a popular western culture.

Methamphetamine HCL, popularly known as SHABU, has a street value of more than P18 billion. Monthly, drug addicts are consuming more than two (2) tons of SHABU. The Philippines Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) admitted that illegal drug trade is the most “prevalent and pervasive” crime in the country. The manufacturing, trafficking, and distribution of illegal drugs corrupt society right to its very core. Behind these are the illegal drug syndicates responsible for facilitating illegal drugs. The largest are engaged in massive smuggling and manufacturing activities. Foremost among these syndicates, PDEA added, are the Chines/Filipino-Chines Drug syndicates operating in the country with clandestine cooperation of corrupt police officers and local government officials. Next, are the African Drug Syndicate (ADS) who smuggle illegal drugs for local distribution or use the country as transshipment to other parts of Asia. Awash with cash, they specialized in using women as drug mules.

Although it happened six years ago, Haiyan, a super typhoon, intensified the debate on global warming. While scientist was presenting data on whether global warming caused the increase of super typhoons or not, our country continues to experience erratic weather that compromised food security. Scientists admitted that global warming was responsible for the increase in the sea level which worsened flooding and caused stronger storm surge. Climatologists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) showed a model on the gradual increase of tropical cyclones attributed to continuing climate change. Unfortunately, these catastrophic typhoons are prominently predicted to increase in the western North pacific countries like the Philippines.

In the 2015 Global Climate Risk Index report, the Philippines is the first country affected by climate change. Every year damages to the agricultural sector run to billions of pesos. All typhoons that hit the Philippines caused considerable damages to the agriculture sector. As a significant economic base of the country, any climate disruptions in the agriculture sector, such as the El Nino and the La Nina, seriously brought so much damage and miseries to the people.

Discussions on climate change evoke images of damaged infrastructures. However, people overlooked their harmful effects on health. For instance, global warming created an environmental condition for the dengue-carrying-mosquito to multiply exponentially and become more aggressive. The Department of Health (DOH) attributed to climate change the explosive cases of Dengue in 2015, a 64.8 percent increase compared to 2014. From January to August 2019, DOH recorded 271,480 dengue cases prompting the government to declare a national dengue epidemic. Children between five to nine years of age composed more than half of the estimated 1,107 people who died of dengue.

Scientists identified carbon dioxide, which is steadily increasing every month as a significant driver for global climate change. Carbon dioxide, a significant greenhouse gas, is rapidly reconfiguring the global weather and climate system. The rising average temperature, erratic weather events, rising sea levels are the primary results of climate change.

The Philippine's total Green House Gas (GHG) emission in 2018 was 132.18 million metric tons less than a half percent of the total global carbon emission. Incomparable to total carbon emission of the two giant economies of the world, China emitted 9,838.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, and the US followed with 5,269.5 million metric tons. They are the chimney of the world. The Philippines leave an almost invisible carbon footprint, but the country received the hardest brunt of climate change.

The origins of the most significant problems in the Philippines are traceable outside the country. The foreigners brought them in our country. Therefore, people need to open their eyes to the truth. The country around us intends to promote its interests. We must only accept the solutions from our people. We must not depend on help from other countries. Our forefathers survived hundreds of years and stood equal with other nations of the world because they depend only on themselves. The problem of our country multiplied exponentially because we allowed other nations to tell us how to live.