RP growth not enough under Arroyo — Neri

Filipinos have mostly not benefited from the country’s economic growth — equal to about 5 percent annually — during President Arroyo’s seven-year term, a top official yesterday admitted.

While the government had aimed for 7-percent growth annually, the actual figure was insufficient to lift significant numbers out of poverty, Romulo Neri, president of the Social Security System (SSS), said in a gloomy assessment of the outgoing leader’s period in office.

“Five percent is not good enough. We need about seven, possibly eight percent growth. That is why… this administration’s goal was to reach seven percent on a consistent basis,” he said at a forum aired by ABS-CBN television.

“Unfortunately we have been caught up in some crises and we were not able to sustain it,” he noted.

Government figures show that in 2006, about 30.1 percent of the population lived in poverty, up from 29 percent in 2003.

Although Arroyo’s government achieved a record 7.2-percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2007, this was later brought down by the global financial crisis and various natural disasters.

Growth in 2009 was a mere 0.9 percent, the lowest in 11 years.

Arroyo is due to step down after presidential elections in May.

Neri, who served as socio-economic planning secretary from 2002 to 2007, said it appeared the wealthy had gained most from economic growth.

“Much of this growth is going to corporations. If you look at the savings rates… in the 1970s, much of the savings was in households, now the (bulk of) savings has shifted to corporate savings,” he said.

Meanwhile, alarmed with the rising hunger incidence in the country, Sen. Edgardo Angara reiterated the need to adopt and implement aggressive measures to combat hunger and reduce malnutrition.

According to the Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey, involuntary hunger has reached record numbers, with almost one in four Filipino households going hungry in the past three months.

The survey which was conducted last month also found indications that poor families have been lowering their standard of living.

Compared to the results of a similar survey in October, overall hunger rose 11 points in Metro Manila (27 percent or about 665,000 families); eight points in the Visayas (27.9 percent, or about 1 million families); six points in Mindanao (24.5 percent, or about 1 million families); and two points in the rest of Luzon (21.2 percent, or about 1.7 million families).

The glaring statistics, according to the former Agriculture secretary, only shows the urgency to prioritize hunger mitigation programs that target the country’s absolute poor, those who have no means to buy food.

Indian economist Amartya Sen argued that hunger is rooted in the differences in wealth and power among populations, which affect their access to limited resources. The solution, therefore, is redistributing purchasing power and ensuring that people have gainful employment that will provide them the means to access food.

Angara added, “Moreover, there is a need to establish mechanisms and promote national policies that give incentives for maximizing agricultural production. This could solve the problem in two ways: Increasing food production to stabilize prices and prevent fluctuations in supply, and raising the incomes of the rural poor who are often the casualties of hunger.” AFP