Of surveys on hunger and poverty: perceptions and reality

It is a sad truth that, given an economy which is thought to have inched its way further and has managed to cushion the impact of the global crisis (at least in this difficult season), our country is still caught in the sticky quagmires of hunger and poverty. Being the fifth hungriest out of the 55 countries surveyed by Gallup International's Voice of the People, it makes me think what is really wrong with the system; whether the problem lies with the Filipinos' contentment standards or with the counterweight of the inflated economy defeating any statistical improvements.

Gallup International indicated that between June and September 2008, 40% of Filipino citizens said they have experienced frequent hunger in the last 12 months. The Social Weather Station (SWS) has also reported that approximately 3.3 million household have suffered involuntary hunger during the same period. In addition, the National Statistics Coordination Board (NSCB) projected that there were 27.6 million poor Filipinos (32.9% of the total population) in 2006.

Considering also the over-all economic stability and growth which the President has been boasting of in her previous State of the Nation Addresses, here we will see both sides of the same coin presenting us with a picture of the Philippine economy from two vantage points, the macroscopic observation and microscopic observation.

Perhaps we can say that GMA's description of the economy is not an overstatement, but those reported by surveys are not understatements either. Both of them relied on numbers which are hard facts, the only difference is that GMA's indicators such as general growth in infrastructure, investment, agriculture etc. are too stiff and does not explain well the distributions of the elements and its effects on the growth of the classes, while on the other hand, popular surveys are more detailed, taking in consideration each individual status relevant to the scope of the needed information. The former suggest the situation according to the eyes of the observer, while the latter speaks of the condition according to the eyes of the observed. Currency and production are not enough indicators, for they fail to detect the great gap and disparity between the social classes amidst the projected over-all growth. They can tell you many things but they cannot tell you everything. They may tell you that the PSE is doing great at the moment, that the currency is gaining, or that the GDP is improving; they will tell you that the country is richer than ever. But what they cannot tell you is that only a small percentage, the upper class and a little of the middle class, reflects and enjoys this growth, while a significantly huge part of the population remains nigh or in the borderline of poverty and beneath.

Whenever I relate to hunger, I always cannot dissociate poverty as the basic cause. And with regard to surveys, sometimes polls on poverty have an underside which gives us a benefit of the doubt. For it makes a lot of difference when a people relates to poverty as "a situation where you cannot obtain your basic needs," in contrast to another set of people who says that they are poor because they "cannot obtain things above their basic needs." This dissimilarity poses a question whether the people are really "poor" or they do just simply "feel poor." Perhaps these varying definitions depend upon the dominant socio-cultural notions, attitudes and aspirations towards what it means to be poor, just like what New Philippine Revolution had to say a year ago, but is still applicable to any period.

"But, why do Filipinos still consider themselves as poor?

The answer lies in Filipino aspirational values. For Filipinos, being poor means just having three square meals a day and not having the extra money to buy the aspirational things like jewelry, new clothes, etc. For us, this is the definition of being poor. In other countries, being poor means not having the means to even eat 3 square meals a day. That is poor. Here, being poor means not having the means to buy the things others have, like cars, new clothes, etc."

Now, as we return to hunger, it is hard to say that Gallup results are taken merely out of the respondents' perception. We eat three times a day and are subject to experience the same hunger whenever we pass a meal or two, hence the Gallup survey reflects an equal reality on the state of global hunger from the common experiences of people around the world, unlike the sense of poverty which is only perceived and may not be empirically experienced.

It doesn't escape me that some Filipino respondents might have answered the survey with biased inexactitude as far as they are concerned. For example, one who is repulsive of the present administration will of course exaggerate his situation in order to emphasize government ineptness. Such case undeniably exists, but although this makes a little deviation from truthfulness, that doesn't mean that the survey is altogether unreliable. It still reflects discontentment that may be prevailing among the citizens brought by hardships under the status quo, and does not reverse the fact that surveys are nonetheless veritable in greatest proximity.

What we should learn from this is that albeit we have leaped a longer distance than in the previous years, we must put our attention to the growing gap between the rich, the middle class, and the poor. The businesses of the wealthy help accelerate the economy and the middles class catches up closer and closer in their tail, while the poor recedes away, multiplying along their trail. Furthermore, the government must make sure that resources and commodities are geographically distributed as much as each area needs, meaning that underproductive (or calamity or drought-stricken) areas must be given more share than the productive ones. Production should be accompanied with good strategy so that someday the surveys will finally project something positive both in perception and reality.