Wake up! We are also the reason of our own suffering.

Almost of the Filipinos ask the question " Kamusta na ang buhay ngayon?" and answered it "Naghihirap pa rin, walang asenso." We never asked ourselves why?, why are we still suffering from poverty?, what are the reason behind poverty?.  We always blame our government, we never think that the government is not just the reason but also, WE are the reason of our suffering.

We had some habits that can cause poverty. First, our manana habit or procrastination. Honestly, I have these habit. I usually do my stuffs later even i had a free time. I usually spend my free time with Facebook and other useless stuffs. We neglect the important things, what we should do is to put priorities first . "Mamaya na" should be removed in our minds. If we can removed these bad habit, little by little our lives will be develop. The bottom line is Why do things later, if you can do it now. Second, our crab mentality. Mostly Filipinos are like this. We usually do not see that we have this kind of attitude but even in simple conversations this attitude occurs. For example, in class we see one of our classmates excel and because we are envy of that, we talk behind her back, as a result of that, we had destroyed her image. Instead of minding our own selves, we are pulling down people that already at the top. If one people succeed we should be happy and supportive for them and had a mind set that " I can succeed too". Those people who succeed should serve as inspirations not enemies. We should be busy in helping ourselves to be on top, we should not be busy pulling people in the mud. Lastly, our trait of being fatalistic: "bahala na". If we encounter situations or problems that are hard we usually say "bahala na". We do not push further. We just stop and do not try harder and depend it to God. We always forget the saying " Do your best and God will do the rest". Having this trait can't lead us to success but can further pull us down. If we just put our lives in fate we ca't get anything. Fate can't give us salaries, clothes, food and our other necessities. We can only get that by working hard. We should be on action always, we should not just be sitting in our couches and waiting for a blessing to drop in our hands.

We need to help ourselves, we should work harder, value or education and be practical. We should practice to remove those traits listed above. We should be united, we should not be envy. If each Filipino will help their selves to improve; if each Filipino will change their mind sets; if each Filipino would not depend in fate. Slowly, Philippines would develop. Together we will rise and see the betterment of our country.

Poverty: The Endless Catastrophe in the Philippines

Let's open our eyes with how poverty kills slowly the unfortunate Filipinos through the article from txtmania.com. and an article from ezinearticles.com.

Understanding Poverty

The Population Commission (Popcom) said there are 30.6 million Filipinos or 6.12 million families who are suffering from poverty. When I learned about this, I took consolation with the notion that I am not alone, yet I felt dismayed over the complacency of our national government officials who seem undisturbed by the fact that 40 percent of their constituents live below the poverty line throughout the country's 78 provinces, 84 cities or 41,940 barangays. How can they sit back and relax?There are about 77 million Filipinos today, and this number is growing by 2.05 percent annually. This means that some 1.5 million Filipinos are born every year, 600,000 of whom to poor parents. Some 32.5 million Filipinos, comprising 66.3 percent of the population, are considered matured enough to work. But 3.3 million of these people, or 10.1 percent of the workforce, cannot find jobs while 5.2 million others, or 17.7 percent, have no regular source of income.By international standards, these are critical problems. The Taiwanese government is in the brink of panic, because the unemployment rate in that country just north of Luzon is threatening to hit 5 percent, year-on-year. Yet, our Filipino government officials are sitting relaxed inside posh restaurants and five-star hotels, as 8.5 million Filipinos or 28 percent of the workforce are trying to figure out where to source the next meal for their families. According to the World Bank, the Philippines had a per capita GNP of US$1,050 in 1999, compared to China's US$780, Indonesia's US$600, Vietnam's US$370, Lao's US$290 or Cambodia's US$280. Yet, the Philippines' poverty incidence rate of 40 percent is higher than China's 3 percent, Indonesia's 23 percent, Vietnam's 37 percent, Lao's 38 percent or Cambodia's 36 percent. Why is that? Wealth in the Philippines is concentrated on the hands of the few, that's why. It is the World Bank, and not the NDF, which gave such explanation.Now consider this, the prestigious Forbes magazine has included at least five Filipinos in the list of world billionaires (US dollars). Let us rejoice! Imagine, highly industrial and welfare states like France, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden do not have a single representative to the billionaires' circle. Among Southeast Asian countries, poverty incidence is most extreme in the Philippines where some 15.3 million Filipinos (half of the poor population) wake up every morning without food on the table. These people are called subsistence individuals or whose income cannot provide for basic food requirements. Popcom's data is even conservative because in its interpretation, a family of six earning a total of P72,000 a year is not considered poor. In contrast, a study conducted by the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC) pegged the minimum income that a family of six must earn annually at P191,874 in order to live decently in Metro Manila. The labor sector has been demanding for a P125 daily wage hike or 50 percent of the current level but the group of employers claimed that such wage adjustment would force many establishments out of business. Listening more to the rhetoric of the rich rather than to the howl of the poor, the Regional Tripartite Wage Board has approved only a P30 daily wage increase in the metropolis. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) event want us to believe that the previous minimum daily wage of US$5 (P250) in Manila is much higher than China's US$1. Ironically, the Philippines reported a poverty incidence rate of 40 percent, much higher than China's 3 percent. What makes things more difficult for us is the high prices of commodities. The country's inflation rate, estimated at 6 to 7 percent annually, is the highest in Asia. Japan, a super rich country, is ironically having a deflation. Let us make some computation. A person who is covered by the minimum wage would not take home P250 a day. Most likely, the wage, after tax and pension deductions, on top of travel and meal expenses, would amount to something like P150. A person who passes by a fastfood center, which is not in anyway a luxurious restaurant, might spend at least P50, or 33 percent of his take-home income on a roll of rice and a fried chicken wing. That explains his purchasing power. Imagine spending all of your daily income in just three meals at an inexpensive restaurant. Food is supposed to account for less than 20 percent of a man's expenses.While it might be true that a P125 daily wage adjustment will be bad for business (the Central Banks warned it would push inflation rate to 18 percent), this might be the only option that the poor has against poverty. Unless the government can do something like bringing the prices of food and other basic commodities, there is no other recourse but to increase the poor's purchasing power. The government needs to do its own computation, and put some system in managing the affairs of the nation.Sadly, it seems that our government officials haven't learned anything from the past. Only last year, about 500 people were killed when a 50-meter pile of garbage collapsed on their makeshift houses in a dumpsite in Quezon City. This was the absolute face of poverty, whose image failed to instill understanding among our numb leaders. Now, who could blame the 20,000 protesters who stormed to Malacanang Palace last May 1. The people in the media, who were not even aware on what the attack was about, had the guts to brand these protesters a mob of poor and undisciplined warriors. It also seems that the current crop of leaders have nothing to offer, and one opposition senator even admitted that in 30 years, the Philippines will not even reach the level of Thailand, which I understand, is still a poor country. This is anything but encouraging. Imagine spending the next 30 years of your life in poverty (if the tension in Central Asia does not lead into another world war, of course). We wait for a day that one leader will rise to change our mindset and status in life. Someone who will promise to turn the Philippines into a country of mostly rich people in his lifetime and can convince us that he really can.

Why does Poverty Persist in the Philippines?

The Philippines have been suffering from poverty problem and it continues to exist until today. There have been a lot of alleviation programs introduced by the government but the dilemma keeps on emerging.The economic problem of Philippine government persists to surface in the society and it is sometime very tiresome to imagine. It gives too much headache not just to the Philippine government but also to the whole Filipino people.The problem on poverty has been blame to lack of political will of those officials running the government office in uplifting the people's lives from financial scarcity. Some have pinpointed it to lack of business investors from both local and foreign capitalists. While other says that it is due to rampant criminality that happened everyday in the different parts of the country. Many utters that Filipinos are lazy and lacks the required education and if educated the course being taken are not appropriate to jobs available in the market.People's ideas and opinion are proportionally divided. But what is really the real issue why poverty continues to devastate the majority of the Filipinos?Here are some of the many reasons which I believe contributes a lot to poverty situation of the Philippines.

Economic debt - the swelling amount of debts of the Philippine government from both local and foreign lenders makes the poverty situation getting worst. Every year the Philippine government has paying billion of pesos on the interest and on the principal amount of obligations. In the debts record of the Bureau of Treasury of the Philippines for the calendar year 2009, the external or foreign debt reached P 1,926,599,000,000.00 (1.93 trillion pesos). On the other hand, the internal or domestic debt reached to P2,470,040,000,000.00 (2.47 trillion pesos). In total, the Philippines have a combined debt of P4,396,639,000,000.00 (4.40 trillion pesos). The "National Government Debt Service" for the same year reached about P622,287,000,000.00 (622.30 billion pesos).

Corruption is also in the top list that makes poverty one of great social predicaments of the Philippines. The practice of corruption contributes immensely in dragging the Filipinos into poverty. Because of the greedy ambition of some leaders in the government many have suffer from too much financial insufficiency.

There are still a lot of reasons that makes poverty persist in the Philippines. The above example is just a few of the many explanation why the economic shortage always ahead of the Filipinos. But no matter how the Philippine' people is devastated by this social predicaments. There is still hope that Filipinos can hurdle the present social dilemma that strongly blocks the economic prosperity of the Philippines.

The Reproductive Health Bill: Facts and Fallacies

In the 2010 Presidentiables Blog can be found in http://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com,Rep. Edcel Lagman wrote the article Reproductive Health Bill: Facts and Fallacies and shared his thoughts about this economic issue.  

THE BILL IS NATIONAL IN SCOPE, COMPREHENSIVE, rights-based and provides adequate funding to the population program. It is a departure from the present setup in which the provision for reproductive health services is devolved to local government units, and consequently, subjected to the varying strategies of local government executives and suffers from a dearth of funding.

The reproductive health (RH) bill promotes information on and access to both natural and modern family planning methods, which are medically safe and legally permissible. It assures an enabling environment where women and couples have the freedom of informed choice on the mode of family planning they want to adopt based on their needs, personal convictions and religious beliefs.The bill does not have any bias for or against either natural or modern family planning. Both modes are contraceptive methods. Their common purpose is to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

The bill will promote sustainable human development. The UN stated in 2002 that “family planning and reproductive health are essential to reducing poverty.” The Unicef also asserts that “family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology now available to the human race.”

Coverage of RH. (1) Information and access to natural and modern family planning (2) Maternal, infant and child health and nutrition (3) Promotion of breast feeding (4) Prevention of abortion and management of post-abortion complications (5) Adolescent and youth health (6) Prevention and management of reproductive tract infections, HIV/AIDS and STDs (7) Elimination of violence against women (8)

Reproductive health bill: Facts, fallacies

Counselling on sexuality and sexual and reproductive health (9) Treatment of breast and reproductive tract cancers (10) Male involvement and participation in RH; (11) Prevention and treatment of infertility and (12) RH education for the youth.

Strengthening of Popcom. The existing Population Commission shall be reoriented to promote both natural and modern family planning methods. It shall serve as the central planning, coordinating, implementing and monitoring body for the comprehensive and integrated policy on reproductive health and population development.

Capability building of community-based volunteer workers. The workers shall undergo additional and updated training on the delivery of reproductive healthcare services and shall receive not less than 10-percent increase in honoraria upon successful completion of training.

Midwives for skilled birth attendance. Every city and municipality shall endeavor to employ an adequate number of midwives and other skilled attendants.

Emergency obstetrics care. Each province and city shall endeavor to ensure the establishment and operation of hospitals with adequate and qualified personnel that provide emergency obstetrics care.

Hospital-based family planning. Family planning methods requiring hospital services like ligation, vasectomy and IUD insertion shall be available in all national and local government hospitals.

Contraceptives as essential medicines. Reproductive health products shall be considered essential medicines and supplies and shall form part of the National Drug Formulary considering that family planning reduces the incidence of maternal and infant mortality.

Reproductive health education. RH education in an age-appropriate manner shall be taught by adequately trained teachers from Grade 5 to 4th year high school. As proposed in the bill, core subjects include responsible parenthood, natural and modern family planning, proscription and hazards of abortion, reproductive health and sexual rights, abstinence before marriage, and responsible sexuality.

Certificate of compliance. No marriage license shall be issued by the Local Civil Registrar unless the applicants present a Certificate of Compliance issued for free by the local Family Planning Office. The document should certify that they had duly received adequate instructions and information on family planning, responsible parenthood, breast feeding and infant nutrition.

Ideal family size. The State shall encourage two children as the ideal family size. This is neither mandatory nor compulsory and no punitive action may be imposed on couples having more than two children.

Employers’ responsibilities. Employers shall respect the reproductive health rights of all their workers. Women shall not be discriminated against in the matter of hiring, regularization of employment status or selection for retrenchment. Employers shall provide free reproductive health services and commodities to workers, whether unionized or unorganized.

Multimedia campaign. Popcom shall initiate and sustain an intensified nationwide multimedia campaign to raise the level of public awareness on the urgent need to protect and promote reproductive health and rights.

* * *

Smear offensive

THERE IS A CONTINUING campaign to discredit the reproductive health bill through misinformation. Straightforward answers to the negative propaganda will help educate and enlighten people on the measure.

The bill is not antilife. It is proquality life. It will ensure that children will be blessings for their parents since their births are planned and wanted. It will empower couples with the information and opportunity to plan and space their children. This will not only strengthen the family as a unit but also optimize care for children who will have more opportunities to be educated, healthy and productive.

The bill does not interfere with family life. In fact, it enhances family life. The family is more than a natural nucleus; it is a social institution whose protection and development are impressed with public interest. It is not untouchable by legislation. For this reason, the State has enacted the Civil Code on family relations, the Family Code, and the Child and Youth Welfare Code.

The bill does not legalize abortion. It expressly provides that “abortion remains a crime” and “prevention of abortion” is essential to fully implement the Reproductive Health Care Program. While “management of post-abortion complications” is provided, this is not to condone abortion but to promote the humane treatment of women in life-threatening situations.

It will not lead to the legalization of abortion. It is not true that all countries where contraceptive use is promoted eventually legalize abortion. Many Catholic countries criminalize abortion even as they vigorously promote contraceptive use like Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Paraguay and Ireland. The Muslim and Buddhist countries of Indonesia and Laos also promote contraceptive use yet proscribe abortion. 

According to studies, correct and regular use of contraceptives reduces abortion rates by as much as 85 percent and negates the need to legalize abortion.

Contraceptives do not have life-threatening side effects. Medical and scientific evidence shows that all the possible medical risks connected with contraceptives are infinitely lower than the risks of an actual pregnancy and everyday activities. The risk of dying within a year of riding a car is 1 in 5,900. 

The risk of dying within a year of using pills is 1 in 200,000. The risk of dying from a vasectomy is 1 in 1 million and the risk of dying from using an IUD is 1 in 10 million. The probability of dying from condom use is absolutely zero. But the risk of dying from a pregnancy is 1 in 10,000.

The bill will not promote contraceptive mentality. The bill does not prohibit pregnancy. Critics are mistaken in claiming that because contraceptives would be readily available, people would prefer to have no children at all. Couples will not stop wanting children simply because contraceptives are available. Contraceptives are used to prevent unwanted pregnancies but not to stop pregnancies altogether. Timed pregnancies are assured.

The bill does not impose a two-child policy. It does not promote a compulsory policy strictly limiting a family to two children and no punitive action shall be imposed on parents with more than two children. This number is not an imposition or is it arbitrary because results of the 2003 National Demographic and Health Survey show that the ideal of two children approximates the desired fertility of women.

Sexuality education will neither spawn “a generation of sex maniacs” nor breed a culture of promiscuity. Age-appropriate RH education promotes correct sexual values. It will not only instill consciousness of freedom of choice but also responsible exercise of one’s rights. The UN and countries which have youth sexuality education document its beneficial results: understanding of proper sexual values is promoted; early initiation into sexual relations is delayed; abstinence before marriage is encouraged; multiple-sex partners is avoided; and spread of sexually transmitted diseases is prevented.

It does not claim that family planning is the panacea for poverty. It simply recognizes the verifiable link between a huge population and poverty. Unbridled population growth stunts socioeconomic development and aggravates poverty. The connection between population and development is well-documented and empirically established.

UN Human Development Reports show that countries with higher population growth invariably score lower in human development. The Asian Development Bank in 2004 also listed a large population as one of the major causes of poverty in the country.

The National Statistics Office affirms that large families are prone to poverty with 57.3 percent of families with seven children mired in poverty while only 23.8 percent of families with two children are poor. Recent studies also show that large family size is a significant factor in keeping families poor across generations.

Family planning will not lead to a demographic winter. UP economics professors in their paper “Population and Poverty: The Real Score” declared that the threat of a so-called demographic winter in the Philippines is “greatly exaggerated, and using it as an argument against a sensible population policy is a plain and simple scare tactic.”

The National Statistical Coordinating Board projected that a replacement fertility of 2.1 children per couple could be reached only by 2040. Moreover, despite a reduced population growth rate, the effects of population momentum would continue for another 60 years by which time our total population would be 240 million.

Humanae Vitae is not an infallible doctrine. In 1963, Pope John XXIII created the Papal Commission on Birth Control to study questions on population and family planning. The Commission included ranking prelates and theologians.

Voting 69 to 10, it strongly recommended that the Church change its teaching on contraception as it concluded that “the regulation of conception appears necessary for many couples who wish to achieve a responsible, open and reasonable parenthood in today’s circumstances.”

However, it was the minority report that Pope Paul VI eventually supported and which became the basis of Humanae Vitae.

Even 40 years ago when the encyclical was issued, theologians did not generally think that it was infallible. Monsignor Fernando Lambruschini, spokesperson of the Vatican at the time of its release, said “attentive reading of the encyclical Humanae Vitae does not suggest the theological note of infallibility… It is not infallible.”

Five days after the issuance of the encyclical, a statement against it was signed by 87 Catholic theologians. It asserted that “Catholics may dissent from … noninfallible Church doctrine” and that “Catholic spouses could responsibly decide in some circumstances to use artificial contraception.”

A Spilled Insight of a Pro-RH Bill

Population had been a problem in our country, population leads to poverty that Filipinos are really suffering now. We need to exercise something that can prevent the increase in our population, we need RH Bill.

Why am I a Pro-RH Bill? It is because of my eyes are widely opened with these circumstances.

My sister is one of the youth having an early pregnancy. In her 22 years of age, she already has a daughter and a son. What made this whole thing worst? Is the fact that she hadn’t finished her studies and had an irresponsible partner. They are engaging in pre-marital sex even though they know that they don’t have the capacity to support their children. My sister’s children are unwanted and not planned; they will suffer the consequences of their carelessness; they will have a dark future ahead of them.

Why I am saying that they would have a dark future ahead of them? It is because my sister is still dependent with my parents. Yes, she’s out of the four corners of our home and she’s living with her partner but my parents are the one who’s bringing their life. My parents are the one who provide their food, their other necessities and the vitamins and other medical needs of her children. In addition, my parents pay the hospital bills during the delivery of my sister; they are also the one who pay the expenses when my niece was admitted. My father was the one who provide the job yet his partner neglected the job.

The bottom line is we need RH Bill to help us prevent these happenings. We don’t want to see children that are malnourished, children who won’t have education, and children who are living in the streets. We want to lessen the number of teenagers that is facing an early pregnancy, we want to lessen the numbers of people who have HIV/AIDS, and we want to lessen the number of abortion.

We need RH bill not because we want to lessen the number of lives here on earth. We need RH bill because we want to have a better life for everyone. This is my choice, I am a Pro- RH Bill.