A look at the palliative approach in addressing hunger in the Philippines
Early last month (August), President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo found yet another controversy at her hands, this time over two lavish dinners she and her entourage reportedly had during her US visit for talks with President Obama. The tab, according to reports filed by two US papers, ran up to a total of $35,000, or close to 1.7 million pesos.
The issue drew a firestorm which again put into spotlight just how deep many Filipinos are mired in poverty and hunger, and how little government seems to care. In the days that followed, Malacanang announced that it was withdrawing plans of purchasing a P1.2-billion presidential jet, and was pouring in an additional P5 billion to its ‘conditional cash transfer’ program for the poor to benefit an additional 300,000 families.
“Let’s look at the positive side rather than look into why the President is doing what she’s doing now,” said deputy presidential spokesperson Lorelei Fajardo, in response to speculation that the moves were simply part of a ‘charm offensive’, after Ms. Arroyo’s image has taken such a hit.
However, this line might have been easier to swallow had there been a genuine, long-term effort of the government in place at eradicating hunger and poverty in the country. Instead, a deeper look reveals that, much like Ms. Arroyo’s hurried attempts at patching up her image in the wake of a PR disaster, her administration’s efforts have mostly been palliatives, calibrated strikes with limited and short-term effects, and have had no real attempt at addressing the root causes of hunger and poverty.
Going nowhere
The latest results of surveys conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) reveal that around 7.2 million Filipino families (39%) consider themselves ‘food-poor’ (Self-Rated Food Poverty), while 3.7 million families (20.3%) have experienced hunger at least once in the past three months, 790,000 (4.3%) of these ‘severely’ (“often” or “always” in the past three months).
“The new Hunger figure is just 3 points lower than the record-high 23.7% in December 2008, and is 8 points above the ten-year average of 12.8%...Hunger has consistently been in double-digits for five years, since June 2004,” the SWS noted.
Also, “Self-Rated Food Poverty has been volatile at 49% in June 2008, 38% in September 2008, 42% in December 2008, 36% in February 2009, and 39% in June 2009,” it said.
All this points towards a direction-less effort, at best, by government at containing widespread hunger, and, at worst, an ineffectual ruse at addressing the problem that only serves to heighten it.
The results that came out just before Ms. Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July, which reflected the surveys conducted by the SWS in the year’s first quarter, showed a six-point drop in self-rated food poverty, mostly attributed to Mindanao. Many observers expressed apprehensions that such drop was only due to a calibrated effort (i.e., feeding programs, cash dole-outs) by the administration in the country’s poorest southern regions, ‘timed’ to churn out a good piece of news for the President’s SONA.
In the latest results, which reflected the second-quarter surveys of the SWS, Mindanao promptly registered a sharp 11-point increase in self-rated food poverty, from 36% to 47%.
Conditional solution
The government’s major anti-poverty effort lies in the aforementioned ‘conditional cash transfer’ (CCT) program, called the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), and spearheaded by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). In concept, the poorest families are selected for cash benefits in exchange for certain conditions, including sending their children to school and availing of specific health requirements, such as preventive check-ups and vaccines for the children and pre- and post-natal care for pregnant mothers.
A family with three children aged 0-14 can receive a maximum of P1,400 a month, or P15,000 annually, according to the DSWD website. Of late, as mentioned, the President has expanded its coverage from 700,000 to 1 million families, adding P5 billion more to its budget for a total of an earmarked P15 billion.
Critics have pointed out that such measures are nothing more than ‘dole-outs’ and are geared only for the short-term, something which DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral fervently denies. She often cites the “proven success” of CCT programs in other countries, particularly in Latin America where such programs were first implemented, and seems convinced that this is an honest-to-goodness measure in finally solving hunger and poverty in the country.
While various international studies, indeed, have generally pointed out a positive effect of CCTs upon enrollment rates and utilization of health services, it must be noted that most come with a caveat or three, and generally agree that these programs cannot stand alone in order to fully eliminate hunger and poverty.
Michael Adato and John Hoddinott (2007), of the International Food Policy Research Institute, for instance, write: “CCT programs are ideal where the supply of supporting services is good but underutilized; they are much less effective when supporting services are limited.” Pertaining to infrastructure such as schools and hospitals, and the quality and accessibility of services afforded by these, the ideal condition obviously does not hold true in the Philippines.
Hyun Son (2008) of the Asian Development Bank adds: “Good governance is an important component of a CCT program…[it] should be transparent in operation to…minimize corruption.” Such, of course, is an area where the Arroyo administration has exceptionally struggled, both in terms of perception and of actual performance.
These may be factors as to why the ‘4Ps’ program in the Philippines has not replicated the reported success, however limited, of other CCT programs abroad; worth mentioning, also, is the program’s very limited scope, a mere 1 million families out of, according to government’s own data (and using an egregiously low poverty line), 4.7 million (2006); or, according to the Self-Rated Poverty survey, 9.3 million (SWS, 2009); or, to more progressive estimates, as much as 71.7% of the population (around 13 million families, IBON Foundation, 2008).
Yet, the most damning argument against the ‘4Ps’ is that, by virtue of its relentless selling by government, it has conveniently displaced calls for the eradication of poverty through genuine national development. The real danger is not that ‘4Ps’ might not work, but that it obscures from people’s minds, and absolves the government of the responsibility for addressing, the deeper structural and socioeconomic realities that need to be first uprooted to enact true development, and consequently eliminate poverty. Instead, it conditions the poor to be content with limited, incremental reforms, and argues that only such is within the realm of the possible.
When the ‘cure’, so to speak, is eschewed for the band-aid, not only does the band-aid become worthless; it becomes harmful, as everyone knows.
Even advocates of CCTs remind us that “CCTs are not a panacea and cannot be expanded endlessly” (Soares, et al., 2007). Son points out that “in the long run, the translation of higher educational attainments into higher earnings cannot be taken for granted because of the country’s absorption capacity of skilled labor.” Adato and Hoddinott: “Of course, poverty reduction requires other approaches to promote economic development and job creation.”
Simply put, improvements sought by the ‘4Ps’ program, in the long run, are almost negated without a substantial shift in economic policy and orientation, towards one that would build a strong domestic economy that would create and protect jobs. Without this, the ‘4Ps’ program merely serves as a convenient veneer to deflect public dissatisfaction and unrest over rumbling stomachs and empty plates, which is, of course, probably not beyond Ms. Arroyo and her wining and dining ways. ##
References
Michael Adato and John Hoddinott. 2007. “Conditional Cash Programs: A ‘Magic Bullet’ for Reducing Poverty?” www.ifpri.org
Sergel Soares, et al. 2007. “Conditional Cash Transfers in Brazil, Chile and Mexico: Impacts Upon Inequality” International Poverty Centre Working Paper No. 35. www.undp-povertycentre.org.
Hyun H. Son. 2008. “Conditional Cash Transfer Programs: An Effective Tool for Poverty Alleviation?” ERD Policy Brief Series No. 51. Asian Development Bank
www.sws.org.ph
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