Why do many Filipinos still sleep on street pavements?

On my daily routine traveling to work, I see children with their grown-ups, parents presumably, sleeping on the side streets in makeshift carton shelters. Nearby, sometimes, are their pushcarts or “karetons.” This is because I am usually on the road before six in the morning and catch these scenes before the metropolis fully awakens.

Poverty is still almost everywhere. Ignoring this fact is the highest possible crime that any society can commit. Sophisticated statistics and reports cannot camouflage the real situation on the ground where at least 19 million Filipinos still struggle for daily survival. What could probably be in their minds other than finding the means to have the barest minimum food that can arrest their hunger?

Nutrition nor taste, I’m sure, are not of primary importance to their regular search for subsistence. Raw hunger, being relieved from it, is the only consideration. Cup noodles, fish crackers, salt and rice comprise their staple.

Why can’t we consistently veer away from this poverty blackhole? We have the best minds, competent professionals who are recruited worldwide from the Silicon Valley, to the global financial giants, respected medical facilities, robust shipping magnates, iconic property and industrial developers, huge international retailers and up to renowned academic institutions. Why, as a country, can’t we win in the competition and be economically at par even with our regional neighbors?

The usual politics is persistently rolling. Meanwhile, as a society, we are trapped in an endless debate on how we can best move forward to improve our economy amidst a political environment that resonates more of a brawl than a board of concerned leaders that could transcend their parochial interests. Perpetration of political control, and continuity of access to the meager resources of our treasury and hefty contracts, are the main objectives of some leaders.

Sadly, it’s already difficult to distinguish the thin line differentiating political and business processes. This thin line, which even further diminishes by the day, is supposed to safeguard the productive synergy that would make politics as an instrument of progress instead of a hurdle to our economic development. The 2025 elections, though still scheduled a year from now, are already disrupting the flow of best ideas and programs that are supposed to help our people, especially those who are living below the poverty threshold.

Nothing excites us more than the perennial mudslinging before, during and even after our regular elections, which are held every three years. But the discourses mostly revolve on the personal mistakes and actions of political personalities. It’s a vaudeville of shallow exchanges on who did what. Yet our people are entertained, mesmerized and plucked out from their reality. After the electoral dusts settle, poverty worsens and businesses are stagnant, deteriorating or barely improving.

Our political exercises perennially fall short in producing the best and the brightest who have the solid character to move mountains and the courage to change the political structure of the country where our people are supposed to be deliberating over ideas and platforms, be accountable to committed political programs and pursue clear economic agenda that will catapult us to the modern 21st century.

The economy takes the back seat. Not until we introduce essential changes in our fundamental laws enshrined in the Constitution, can we expect that the vicious cycle of having a political process that hardly delivers the needed environment for progress will continue. I’m just not sure if the timing is still feasible because the initiative to revisit our organic law has been mired already with all the possible expletives. The level of distrust is almost insurmountable. But I hope that our society will take a closer and deeper open-mindedness on this. If not now, it should be sooner.

I actually believed that the previous administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte would usher in a federal form of government. But the historic campaign fizzled out even with the landmark proposal from no less than former Chief Justice Reynato Puno’s team of luminaries.

Meanwhile, our business environment, tourism, agriculture, our strategic human resource, among others, are disadvantaged in the middle of global competition. We have not overhauled all these, which means the stark results will be the same. There will be bits of improvements of course. But the overall condition of the country stays.

If we miss the rare chance to install structural economic and political changes, poverty will continue to haunt us. Then, expect more people who dwell in the streets and they will slowly be viewed as mere statistics in a hopeless battle for survival.

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