So finally, anti-poverty czar Larry Gadon woke up from his prolonged slumber to jolt the millions of poor Filipino families that hunger and poverty are as real as the Austronesian mythical creature “Tambaluslos,” and those who think there are hordes of paupers in the Philippines are should get a grip. Poverty in the archipelago is “haka-haka” that has no basis in reality.
If Gadon were truly credible, there should be no basis to retain Gadon as the Presidential Adviser for Poverty Alleviation. A nation luxuriating in prosperity has no business serving a “bogus” constituency. We urge newly-elected Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero to immediately file a bill that seeks to dismantle the unnecessary, shameful and irrelevant position that Gadon occupies. With Gadon as the anti-poverty czar, Malacanang would always be uneasy and never at peace.
Gadon’s premise is that a country that has 100 SM malls, several dozens of Ayala Malls, Starmalls, Robinson’s malls, MerryMarts, not to include the hundreds of 7-11s, Uncle John’s, Dali, Alfamarts and other convenience stores literally has no business worrying about poverty. Add to his arguments the many vans and sedans locally assembled by Toyota and Mitsubishi (Honda and Isuzu have pulled out from these shores) that ply Metro Manila highways, as well as the dealerships of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Bentley, Rolls Royce, Bugatti, Jaguar and Mercedes Benz, and voila! The nation is not damn poor but a prosperous one pretending to be poor!
Apparently, Gadon is not doing his homework. Buried in the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) library is the booklet “Reforming Philippine Anti-Poverty Policy: A Comprehensive and Integrated Anti-Poverty Framework” produced by resigned NAPC Lead Convenor Secretary Liza Maza and her secretariat in 2017, barely a year after the Duterte administration. Secretary Maza did not wish poverty away as she took the bull by the horns, tackling the structural roots of poverty in the Philippines, and clashed with the prescription of neoliberals that poverty economics is site-specific, not determined by class and the continuing struggle between the owners of capital and those who own labor power.
Since Gadon has not done his homework, all he could mumble about his theory of poverty and the culture of poverty (of course, he did not read Oscar Lewis) is that since malls are a dime a dozen in this section of the world, and there are as many late-model cars as there are jeepneys, then the logical conclusion is that the 112-million Filipinos are not poor. They do have food in their pantries, they do not sleep hungry and they certainly can afford to have weekly karaoke sessions in drunken revelry.
Gadon’s theory is clean, cute and wrong. It is “haka-haka” for him to think that malls earn billions of pesos from compulsive Filipino buyers whose pockets are full of cash, from euros, UK pounds, US dollars and Swiss francs to Chinese yuan, Japanese yen and Singapore dollars. He must be thinking that Filipinos have become the Hakka Chinese from Fujian and Guangdong who spend money like there’s no tomorrow. Bad news for Gadon as China can no longer hide the more than 300 million poor Chinese retirees and farmers that Xi Jinping can uplift to benefit from his illusory “common prosperity.”
If Gadon bothers to read, he should get hold of the latest report from Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) Undersecretary Dennis Mapa, who revealed that compared to March 2023, agriculture and forestry lost 318,000 jobs, followed by transportation and storage at 292,000, construction at 214,000, administrative and support activities at 118,000 and health and social work, 75,000. In just a year, the country lost 1.017 million jobs in these crucial sectors, and by January 2024, the country’s unemployment rate soared to 4.5%.
By the grace of Gadon’s faulty logic, Filipino workers and peasants must be earning too much as they can afford to splurge on Mang Inasal, Jollibee and perhaps even Starbucks. But mall goers are there for window-shopping and to avoid the extreme heat. This can be more than true considering that the ratio of Filipino families that suffer from hunger has risen to more than 14%, with the highest rate registered at the hub of commercial centers- the National Capital Region (NCR.) It was a jump from 12.6% in December 2023. So, the purchasing power has skyrocketed?
