The Standard of Poverty

On my way home from work, I experienced terrible traffic, being typhoon season and all, these politicians insists on conducting road works in roads that doesn't need repair. They are doing that to make our lives miserable or they are just totally unaware of the impacts of their actions. I am totally disillusioned, my brother is right, being in the Philippines, even with a stable income and a third of it going to the government, I am still living in poverty, surrounded by poverty every step of the way. My poverty is not because I lack the ability to generate an income above the poverty line but I am poor because I live in this country and I hope that the soon Hundred Million Filipinos would all admit that we are all poor and make poverty the standard of living.

In the wake of the recent flooding in Metro Manila, comments from international news agency had described Manila as a poor city. Yes, I totally agree, however the rich, affluent and powerful try to hide it, Manila is a poor city and I don't think any city in this country is rich. We are all poor.  Whatever economic expansion, in terms of GDP or other economic indicators, the current administration may say, we are still poor. We should start by admitting that we are poor because that is the truth. We are all poor regardless if we live in Forbes Park or Payatas.

I re-read James Fallows "A Damaged Culture" a few weeks ago. I first read it as a freshman in  UP, a reading assignment in social studies. Back then, I tend to disagree and even wrote a position paper based on my short-sighted DECS Approved High School Nationalism. Now after being part of Philippine Society, I have excluded the others and aggrandized myself, at times others excluded me and aggrandized themselves and now I totally believe that article. We are not like the Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, or other Asian neighbor with a strong sense of identity and who respect each other, the Filipino rich does not respect the Filipino poor, likewise, the Filipino poor does not respect the Filipino rich. While this rich does not respect that rich and this poor does not respect that poor...there is always a tendency to become ethnocentric without a clear ethnography.

Even the fact that we are mostly Christians, because we treat each other in an Un-Christian fashion. Like  anyone enmeshed in its own addiction, you can never solve your problem without admitting it. Our problem is that we are poor, but being poor is not just a problem, its our national identity, our national identity is our poverty and our strong sense of dependency. The older I become, the DECS specified curriculum on our national identity doesn't make sense anymore, history is not teaching us our identity. It seems so deceiving because however poor we are, the schools never taught us that we are poor and we are not aware that we are poor, therefore we act in ways which makes us poor because we never thought we are poor at all, yet we know that poverty is our problem but never act as if our problem is indeed in poverty.