Thursday, September 10, 2020

Neda: Urban poverty may worsen next year. Inquirer Newsletter. September 11, 2020

MONSTER FLAMES Firefighters watch towering flames destroy forested valleys in Oroville, California, on Wednesday. Officials say some 64,000 people were told to evacuate as crews battle 28 wind-driven wildfires in the most populous US state. —AFP

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DENR: ‘Manila Beach’ sand for testing anew

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources on Thursday said it would conduct its own analysis of the pulverized dolomite dumped on a stretch of the Manila Bay shore, amid calls for the resignation of one of its undersecretaries. The public works department had the dolomite tested last year but had neither released the results nor identified the testing agency it had employed. —STORY BY KRIXIA SUBINGSUBING

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S. Cotabato doctors want hard lockdown

KORONADAL CITY—Doctors in South Cotabato have asked local officials to place the province under the strictest quarantine status, saying the rising number of COVID-19 cases threatened to overwhelm hospitals. The South Cotabato Medical Society said at least 200 health-care workers, 131 of them from the capital Koronadal, were on isolation after their exposure to infected patients. —STORY BY BONG S. SARMIENTO

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Health crisis didn’t slow drug killings

The brutal war on drugs had worsened while the country was facing the worst COVID-19 outbreak in Southeast Asia, an international watchdog said. Citing government figures, the Human Rights Watch reports that the Philippine National Police killed 50 percent more people in its antidrug campaign at the height of the lockdown between April and July than during the previous four months. —STORY BY KRIXIA SUBINGSUBING AND NESTOR CORRALES

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Neda: Urban poverty may worsen next year

By Leila B. Salaverria

Poverty could worsen next year due to the continuing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the urban rather than the rural areas might bear most of the brunt, acting Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua said on Thursday.

Chua, who also heads the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), said that before the pandemic struck, the country was on track to reach its goal of reducing poverty to 14 percent by 2022 from 16.7 percent in 2018.

He told senators during a Senate hearing on the proposed national budget that the government estimated poverty incidence next year could either decline to 15.5 percent or rise to 17.5 percent.

Lower DSWD budget
“We don’t see any of the rural poverty worsening,” he said. “We might see a temporary worsening in the urban poverty where the pandemic and the COVID and the quarantine have affected their livelihood at the time being.”

But Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, citing studies by the Philippine Institute of Development Studies (PIDS) and Social Weather Stations (SWS), said he believed poverty would worsen in 2021 and questioned the lower budget for the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

He said the DSWD should continue its unconditional cash transfer (UCT) program, which had provided P300 per month for a poor household. The cash program ends this year.

Under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act, UCT is the tax subsidy offered to help 10 million poor families affected by the adjustments in excise tax of petroleum products.

The prospect of worsening poverty was reflected in the results of the latest SWS survey released on Thursday, which showed that a large number of Filipinos shared Gatchalian’s assessment.

The survey said 40 percent of adult Filipinos said they expected the economy to worsen in the next 12 months amid the pandemic.

The percentage of “economic pessimists” or those who expect the economy to worsen was the highest in over 12 years since the 52 percent recorded in 2008, SWS reported.

‘Economic optimists’
The survey found that 30 percent of Filipinos are “economic optimists,” or expect the economy to improve, the lowest since the 27 percent in March 2015. It said 24 percent believe the economic situation will remain the same.

Net economic optimism (optimists minus pessimists) fell in all areas, with the biggest decline in the Visayas—from a “very high” +33 in December 2019 to “extremely low” -30 in July.

It was followed by Mindanao (from “excellent” +44 to “mediocre” -7), Luzon outside Metro Manila (from “very high” +37 to “mediocre” -5) and Metro Manila (from “very high” +39 to “mediocre” -1).

The July 3-6 poll used mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviews of 1,555 Filipinos 18 years old and above nationwide. It had a sampling margin of error of plus-or-minus 2 percentage points for national percentages.

Gatchalian, one of the vice chairs of the finance committee, said the DSWD should continue its unconditional cash transfer program for poor Filipinos in 2021.

He noted that the cash aid, which mitigated the effects of the tax reform measures under the TRAIN law, was removed from the 2021 budget as it would end this year.

Unemployment rate
Chua said the unemployment rate for 2021 was projected to be 6-8 percent, which is higher than the normal average unemployment rate of 5 percent but lower than the current rate of 10 percent and the 17.7 percent during the strictest phase of the lockdown.

“Hopefully, we can do better as the economy recovers faster,” he added.

Gatchalian said the PIDS and SWS studies indicated rising poverty and hunger, the more reason for the DSWD to continue aiding the poorest Filipinos.

“We all know that the DSWD is the vehicle that we use to fight poverty and hunger,” he said.

He said that despite the likely worsening poverty, the DSWD budget was cut by 53 percent—from P366 billion this year to P172 billion in 2021.

Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado explained that the DSWD’s original 2020 budget was P164 billion, and this only went up to P366 bilion because of the additional funds it received for the emergency cash subsidy for poor households when the pandemic broke out.

“There would be no more SAP (social amelioration program) next year. But the regular programs … all the other social services program of the DSWD would be in its budget next year,” Avisado said.

Regarding the unconditional cash transfer, Avisado said Congress could review and adjust the DSWD budget if needed.

Gatchalian said he would ask Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, the head of the administration’s economic managers, to retain the unconditional cash transfer program because of the expected increase in the poverty rate. “This is a good way of helping out constituents at least to keep up and cope with COVID,” he said.

Hitting rock-bottom
Reacting to the latest SWS survey, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said the country had “hit rock-bottom and the only way to go is up.”

“So let us link arms, let us resume our livelihoods and reopen the economy. COVID-19 is still here, but we can take care of ourselves and we will recover from this together,” Roque said.

He maintained that “the worst hit us” during the enhanced community quarantine from March to May that shuttered the economy.

“Now, we are gradually reopening the economy and we are also preparing for those who might get sick. Because we have resumed our livelihood, I think we are on the way to recovery. It will not be as bad, it can only be better,” he said. —WITH REPORTS FROM JULIE M. AURELIO AND INQUIRER RESEARCH

Editorial

Peremptory pardon

President Duterte on Monday granted absolute pardon to US Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph Scott Pemberton, who was sentenced to a jail term of six to 10 years for killing transgender Jennifer Laude in 2014. While granting pardon to prisoners is a presidential prerogative under the Constitution, Mr. Duterte’s left-field decision to free Pemberton from criminal liability has been met, understandably, with widespread outrage and expressions of disgust. The President's action was all the more jolting given his strident, flamboyant anti-Americanism, exemplified only months ago by his indignant termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) to protest an underling-turned-senator's inability to get a US visa. (Mr. Duterte has since reversed his decision to end the VFA.) But here he was going the extra mile, as it were, for an American soldier convicted of the heinous crime of killing a Filipino citizen.

It's worth remembering the blood-curdling words Pemberton used to describe his killing of Laude: "I choked it, wrapped my arms around it until it stopped moving, and dragged it towards the bathroom." Laude, 26, was not even human in Pemberton's eyes. And this killer so moved the President to paroxysms of "fairness," mercy and forgiveness, the likes of which he seems unable to extend to ordinary Filipinos. (In the same address defending his pardon of Pemberton, he again excoriated drug suspects and justified the ruthless government war against them.)

Read full story: opinion.inquirer.net