Job creation and decongestion go hand in hand

THERE has been a pervading assumption that life in the big city would give Filipinos in the rural areas greater access to basic services, better education, economic development and livelihood opportunities.

But many Filipinos who leave their small towns and provinces to seek the good life in the big city find out that that the good life is not a sure thing. Indeed, it is more like a pipe dream. Those Filipinos who are used to the benefits and luxuries of urban living may not be aware that more and more people in Metro Manila, Metro Cebu and other urban centers are living in slums or informal settlements, in worse conditions than the ones found in the provinces they left behind. The situation will certainly worsen if the government fails to implement specific moves, both for the short and long term, to deal with rapid urbanization.

According to the report titled “Competitive Cities in the 21st Century: Cluster-Based Local Economic Development,” which was released by the Asian Development Bank and the Australian government on November 22, the lack of employment opportunities, land shortages, and natural disasters and climate change are expected to bloat the urban population in the Philippines by as much as 67 percent by 2030. This means an additional 34.8 million Filipinos living in urban centers like Metro Manila, Metro Cebu and Metro Davao.

One of the authors of the report, urban management specialist Brian Roberts, said that Metro Manila, which has a population of about 12 to 15 million, was already experiencing many of the development challenges associated with high urban populations such as congestion, overcrowding and poor quality of life.

He added that 25 percent of people living in Metro Manila were forced to live in households that had atrocious conditions and were working in low-income and menial jobs in the informal sector.

This more or less confirms the results of the study recently released by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), titled “Linking Poverty and the Environment: Evidence from Slums in Philippine Cities”, which was written by PIDS research fellow Marife Ballesteros.

Slums in Metro Manila are growing at 8 percent a year, the PIDS study says, and this also increases the deepening poverty in the slums. About 32 percent of slum population are poor, with incomes below the 2006 national poverty threshold of over P20,000, or $400 annual per capita; and 12 percent are in extreme poverty, or below the $1.25 international poverty line.

The study adds that Filipino slum dwellers suffer from health problems like tuberculosis, bronchitis, asthma, diarrhea and other skin ailments because of the unsanitary and highly congested conditions they live in (an average area of only four square meters per person). They are likely to suffer from mental stress and sleepless nights, especially children and the elderly.

“Households living in these poor environs pay more for basic services (i.e., water and electricity), have poorer health status, have poorer school performance, have lower productivity and are vulnerable to crimes and violence. While the country has made substantial progress in water and sanitation targets of the MDGs (Millenium Development Goals), it has done poorly in improving the lives of people in [the] slums, and in providing quality of life for most of the urban poor,” the study says.

Yet for all the downside of city living, thousands of people continue to stream into Metro Manila, chasing their dream of a better life and deserting their farms and the countryside, with many of them ending up in the slums.

According to the study, there are about four million slum residents in 2010, which account for 37 percent of the Metro Manila population. Our slum population has increased at an annual rate of 3.5 percent, higher than the increase in urban population growth rate of 2.3 percent during the 2000-2006 period.

By 2050, there would be about 9 million Filipinos living in these slums, according to the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council.

What must the Aquino administration do about this?

The PIDS study says that slum poverty could not be addressed through traditional poverty programs, such as conditional cash transfers, since the poor housing or living condition of slum dwellers is the main cause for lowering the health status of households.

The Aquino administration should focus on rural development to create jobs and services in the countryside, and lure people away from Metro Manila and other cities.

The study adds that by 2035, the share of urban activities to total production and total employment will increase by 92 percent and 88 percent, respectively, and the service sector will likely be the driver of urban growth in the longer term.

If we can’t disperse economic activity in the countryside, especially in the far-flung regions, we cannot expect to stem the increase of slum-dwelling populations in urban centers.

The Philippine economy grew by 7.3 percent in 2010—said to be the fastest growth in 24 years—and yet, as the study disclosed, that did nothing to reduce the slum population. Why? Because most industries and investments are concentrated in Metro Manila, which is the reason most Filipinos flock here. Production, as our economists like to say, is creation of utility, and where the factors of production are—land, labor, capital—there the people will go.

One of the first things that the late former President Corazon Aquino did when she took office in 1986 was to devolve and decentralize the government, with the hope of bringing about “growth with equity.” The Local Government Code was enacted into law precisely to reverse the centralism that resulted in underdevelopment and the lack of government services in the countryside.

In the succeeding administration of former President Fidel Ramos, other laws to help local governments and the countryside were enacted, like the Kalakalan 20 or the Magna Carta for Countryside Development, and the Magna Carta for Small Farmers. If these laws aren’t working, Congress should find out why.

Obviously, local governments simply can’t rely on national government-driven development. They themselves need to create conditions that will lead to job creation. They have to lure private sector investments, whether by relaxing some regulations or reducing taxes or other measures.

The current technologies allow services and manufacturing to be performed anywhere and everywhere. With the right worker education and the right infrastructure, these sectors can thrive outside of the major cities. Dispersing jobs in the countryside is the best way to counteract population congestion in our cities. –ERNESTO F. HERRERA, Manila Times

ernestboyherrera@yahoo.com