Cash doles can’t last, bishop says

THE rising incidence of hunger in the Philippines reported recently by the Social Weather Stations has put the spotlight on the wisdom of the Aquino administration’s cash handouts to the poor—and whether the dole is helping to pull Filipinos out of poverty.

Manila auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo says Malacañang should have opted for job creation and agricultural development as its anti-hunger and anti-poverty strategy, rather than spending billions of pesos on the short-lived conditional cash transfer program.

Speaking on the Church-run Radio Veritas over the weekend, Pabillo warned that the handouts were not sustainable, noting that the poll results showing 4.3 million Filipinos had reported going hungry had already cast doubt on the handout program.

“For me [the handout program] is very temporary,” he said.

“How long can the administration afford to shell out cash? [Eventually], hunger will haunt back the poor people.”

Pabillo says the administration must look for long-term strategies to solve issues tied to hunger and poverty: soaring unemployment (which was last reported at 7.1 percent in July), low wages (P426 for non-agricultural workers in Metro Manila as of May), and the spiraling prices of fuel and basic commodities.

In its Sept. 4-7 poll for the third quarter, the SWS said one in five households—21.5 percent, or about 4.3 million families nationwide—reported having nothing to eat in the last three months.

The research firm polled 1,200 adults face-to-face in Metro Manila, Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao, with sampling error margins of ±3% for national percentages and ±6% for area percentages.

In the second-quarter survey, the SWS poll showed only 15.1 percent said they experienced hunger. In March, the survey firm said 20.5 percent reported experiencing hunger.

The third quarter hunger statistics were the worst so far for the Aquino administration, but the SWS said it was still well below the 24 percent recorded in December 2009 during the Arroyo administration.

A common theme emerging from some pundits is that the dole to the poor is a “problematic approach” to licking poverty in the Philippines.

An Aquino administration critic, retired Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz, lashed out at the much-touted program, saying it reeked of politics, encouraged “indolence,” and bred dishonesty.

“It appears that the CCT is nothing more than a fertile source of gross graft and corrupt practices,” Cruz said.

“There are a number of layers of covetous disburses before the supposed recipients get their cash—the use of ATMs included.”

Cruz said the dole was “nothing more than an easy means” and a ploy for “popular self-advertisement.” The handouts were essentially “an early election campaign.”

IBON research head Sonny Africa says the government’s dole program “admittedly has a feel-good factor,” but it does not improve the economy, a key element in the fight against hunger and poverty. The program “implicitly acknowledges the failure of the economy in trickling down gains to the poor.”

Africa warns that handing cash to the poor is a wrong approach to address the roots of poverty, adding it is “short-lived by design and due to wind up soon after the global Millennium Development Goal review in 2015.”

“Thousands of people within government and outside are working hard to implement the program,” he said.

“Unfortunately, they unwittingly may just be part of an enormously expensive scheme to momentarily reduce poverty for narrow political or propaganda purposes.”

Despite drawing flak, President Benigno Aquino III maintains that his administration would go full blast in pushing the P23-billion handout scheme, which he has compared to a “lifesaver” for poverty-stricken Filipinos, according to an ABS-CBN report.  –Abe Cerojano, Manila Standard Today