The scandal of hunger:
Why we should care

THE RECENT survey by the Social Weather Stations research group that found 15 percent of Filipinos faced hunger at least once in the past three months should not have come as a surprise to the nation. Unemployment is high, prices constantly increasing, and Filipinos are practically being shoved abroad by the Arroyo administration keen on getting its citizens sending greenbacks home.

Watching the TV news program "Insider" on Wednesday night I was horrified by the line-up of its stories: Two young kids used as drug couriers by their warped mother, and then a nine-year-old girl two months pregnant allegedly by her own uncle! What horror! I had to avert my gaze several times while watching the broadcast, as the news was just too upsetting. Tabloid-like it was. The TV crew shouldn't have been allowed to film the young girl wailing that her mother had forced her to carry the illegal drug "shabu" (also known as "ice"), and that she, the daughter, was the one who had squealed on her own mother to the police. Now, the daughter was crying because she felt guilty for turning in her own mother.

I blame the Catholic Church and the brainwashed leaders of the Philippines for this nightmarish scenario of too many Filipinos and too little food. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo can smirk all she likes in her smugness, and she can pray as many times as she wants at her beloved cathedral in Pampanga province, but it still won't stop the scandal of poverty, drug abuse and hunger that many Filipinos are suffering.

The program that Malacañang announced this week to hand out food coupons to the poorest Filipino families across the nation is a good, temporary measure to address the nutritional needs of those struggling to make ends meet, but as many political leaders pointed out it should just be a stop-gap measure.

The government should also have programs to develop the countryside, so that the many poor Filipinos will have a reason to stay put in villages, rather than congregating in the slums of Manila.

Something also has to be done about the high birth rate of 2.36 percent a year, which outstrips the nation's food growth of 2.1 percent, according to Senator Juan Flavier.

The senator had harsh words for Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit, whom he accused of doing nothing with a budget of P100 million that was intended for the promotion of natural family planning methods. It seems the church has won again in having its doctrine of "no birth control plan, is a good plan" in place.

Since President Arroyo is so eager to always pay the interest on foreign loans, to the detriment of poorer Filipinos, I suggest that the International Monetary Fund make any further loans dependent on the Philippines reducing its birth rate. How the Philippines achieved that would be left to Filipinos to figure out.

Too many poor Filipinos survive on eating rice and soy sauce alone. No chicken, beef, or vegetables to nutritionally complement the starch in rice. Giving them coupons to "buy" food from supermarkets will indeed breed dependency in some people that is why it so important that the government also give disadvantaged Filipinos the tools and opportunities to better themselves.

Senator Ralph Recto's proposal to give one kilogram of rice to each very poor child for every day of school attended, would be a great way to help poorer Filipinos while ensuring that their children get the education they deserve.

President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil started a similar program in which a free lunch is provided to all children who come from very poor families, if they attend school. This incentive of free food in exchange for attending school has been a success, with school attendance up across all of Brazil ever since the program was started.

If you give food in exchange for attending school, the state is rewarding good behavior and at the same time helping the poor to better themselves and increase the opportunities available to them through education.

In a fertile and green country such as the Philippines, blessed with so many natural resources, no one should ever go hungry. True, even in America, the richest country in the world, there are poor people who go hungry. But that is a scandal too of the capitalist system in which only the well-to-do survive. Safety nets should be in place to catch the Filipinos who fall on hard times.

But beyond that basic assistance, the government should also have a program to help down-and-out Filipinos get back on their own feet. Instead of just encouraging Filipinos to work abroad, which is just a stop-gap measure, new, sustainable jobs have to be created at home. If nothing is done now, the country that was once Asia's rice basket, may become a basket case itself!

Comments or questions? E-mail the author at rasheed@arabnews.com