“Urban poor condition worsened under Aquino” - Kadamay

By KADAMAY
July 22, 2013

QUEZON CITY – “The Aquino government boasts of an economic growth even though the underlying economic fundamentals and the situation of the people continue to get worse. The decrepit condition of the urban poor is testament to the failure of this government to even make a dent in reducing poverty.”

This was the statement of the Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (KADAMAY) as the militant group led an estimate ten thousand protesters from urban poor communities in Metro Manila and major cities during President Benigno Aquino’s State of the Nation Address (SONA).

“The number of poor and hungry Filipinos increased due to growing unemployment rates. The economic growth the government boasts about is meaningless to us. While prices of basic commodities and services soar, the call for substantial wage hike has fallen on deaf ears. Social services including health services are being privatized,” said Kadamay National Chairperson Gloria Arellano.

“Aquino’s adherence to neoliberal policies of ‘globalization’ through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) that open up the economy for big foreign and local investors is to blame. More than 500,000 poor families living in so-called ‘informal settlements’ in Metro Manila face massive dislocation under Aquino’s PPP, with an urgent target of 20,000 families in the next six months,” Arellano said.

Defective superficial, stopgap solutions

“The Aquino government’s centerpiece anti-poverty program that is Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) is being exposed as a mere dole-out and an anti-insurgency mechanism. It will not lift millions of poor from poverty.”

SWS surveys show poverty rose from 8.9M families in 2012 to 20.6M families in 2013 while 3.6M families went hungry in 2010 rising to 7.9M families in March 2013.

“The Aquino administration also dreams of wiping off urban poor communities from the map by sending them off to far-flung and dangerous relocation sites in the name of development. This, too, shall fail because it does not solve the lack of industrial development that will create sustainable jobs and the lack of a genuine land reform in the countrysides to curb rural-urban migration.”