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IN this
issue’s
Perspective page, there is a wealth of
information on the mixed successes of various
conditional cash-transfer models in developing
countries, where governments and private do-gooders have
struggled for years to cut down poverty levels.
The
revelations of their experiences, with much of the data
supplied by the World Bank, is particularly urgent for
the Philippines, where the political leadership aims to
strike a balance between mitigating the inflationary
impact of rising oil and food prices and fending off
accusations of exploiting the poor with unsustainable
doles at the expense of good governance and
accountability.
The cash
transfers, which admittedly are part of the government’s
strategy against poverty, must, however, be part of a
bigger plan and more massive financing, given the latest
dismal statistics in the social-service sectors,
especially education.
Most
newspapers put on the front page earlier this week the
findings of the National Statistical Coordination Board
that fewer children are in elementary school, and fewer
still in high school, despite the constitutional mandate
for free public-school education in these levels.
The
evidence, empirical and anecdotal, is abundant enough to
show the clear link between declining enrollment and
poverty. It is clear now that, even as the government
trots out yearly the data on shortages in classrooms,
books and teachers—and how mightily it struggles to fill
the gaps—this isn’t a case of “if you build it, they
will come.” For the human side of the schooling equation
is obviously ill-equipped to draw for themselves the
benefits of free schooling, owing to several
poverty-related factors. One, access: many poor pupils
must walk hours each day, many on rough roads or
mountain trails, or even cross rivers to reach school,
where tuition is free.
Even if
they had the will to do so, stamina is a problem for the
many who are undernourished and eat barely one or two
meals each day.
Even if
they had the will and the stamina, some children are
also constrained by poverty to help out in the family
farm or eke out some living. Why, in the heart of the
country’s capital, near Manila’s North Harbor, dozens of
elementary pupils spend the first half of the day
swimming in the dirtiest part of Manila Bay to salvage
recyclable material from garbage: a TV documentary once
quoted two brothers as saying they made an average of
P20 to P40 each day selling plastics (cups and bags,
mostly, and all sorts of containers) and other materials
to junk-shop owners. These are dutifully turned over to
the mother before the brothers go off to school in the
afternoon—famished, tired and their bodies like ticking
time bombs that have absorbed toxic materials, which
doctors warned would take their toll several years
onward.
This is
the human, most vulnerable face of poverty, one
afflicting an entire generation. No wonder the very
vocal former National Economic and Development Authority
chief Winnie Monsod was prompted to exclaim, at a forum
on Wednesday, about the major “messy state” of the
country as its human capital is frittered away.
Now, if
only politicians of every shade would pay more attention
to the tragedy. |
