EDITORIAL - Drugs and poverty

On the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty yesterday, pollster Pulse Asia released the results of its latest survey showing that salaries, jobs and consumer prices are the top concerns of Filipinos. And while the Duterte administration received a high 89 percent approval rating for its anti-crime efforts, fighting criminality ranked behind fighting corruption and reducing poverty in the survey taken from Sept. 25 to Oct. 1.

The results should serve as a guide for policy makers in prioritizing programs and projects. Any war on drugs must be accompanied by an intense campaign to eradicate poverty and make economic growth equitable. Among the sustainable development goals of the United Nations, which the Philippines has also committed to achieve, is to end poverty in all its forms, with extreme poverty eradicated by 2030.

The goal is not a pipe dream. The World Bank Group estimates that since 1990, close to 1.1 billion people have escaped extreme poverty, with 100 million getting out between 2012 and 2013 alone. But some countries are doing better at poverty eradication, and not just through cash dole-outs. The UN stresses that aside from the lack of income and the material items needed such as food and housing, poverty is defined by inadequate access to basic services such as education and health care as well as greater vulnerability to human rights abuses.

For this year’s observance of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the UN has chosen to focus on ending poverty in all its forms and moving the poor from humiliation and exclusion to participation in society. The theme was adopted in consultation with civil society, non-government organizations and anti-poverty activists.

Even relatives of several impoverished street pushers killed in the ongoing drug war have lamented in interviews that the fatalities were mainly trying to make ends meet, in the absence of employment or livelihood opportunities. Poverty is no excuse to turn to crime, but the factors that sustain the drug menace also need to be confronted as aggressively as police are exterminating drug suspects.