POKING THE SCARS, ONCE MORE.

The Philippines, as several decades ago, aspires to be an upper middle-income country by 2022 as stated in the 2017–2022 Philippine Development Plan.  We have come past that, and it is 2023. We tried to commit to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), whose first goal is to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030. Okay, that is 7 years from now. 

Still, poverty is a main concern, both in rural and urban areas. Although poverty has declined worldwide, progress has still, always been uneven. Then, as extreme poverty, is mainly concentrated in rural areas, it cannot be emphasized any more than it is now that rural development and agricultural productivity growth is very crucial for poverty reduction. 

As it is, poverty cannot be eradicated without addressing the pervasive inequalities in incomes and economic opportunities between and within countries, between rural and urban areas, and between men and women. To be able to reduce inequalities, we need to know where we are in improving access for the poor, basic services, and social protection. And this is not like we are neither aware nor always informed about this. We can check on the following specific areas if we are to move faster in our otherwise almost-elusive dream of poverty alleviation: 

- Monitor the impacts of programs that were made to address the concerns of the most vulnerable households and that they are protected from lifestyle choices that could endanger their health, therefore productivity.

- During calamities or emergencies, responses must be on time, and actions must be proactive, especially requiring local areas with responses using real-time data, along with life-saving aid while supporting people to recover their livelihoods. Improving our resiliency to disasters by investing in mechanisms that reduce the risks is a must.

- While we do so, we should also put Gender-Justice a priority. It can be seen that a lot of women are at the heart of what we do as a country, and programs that aim to build women’s power both in households and firms, local and national must be considered. 

- There is nothing wrong with active citizenship, hence it should always be encouraged. For marginalized sectors - women and young people for example must be allowed and encouraged to exercise their political right to influence decisions that affect their lives and livelihoods.

- There must be constant and consistent presentation and assessment of the implementation of policies and even sharing of best practices to promote to empower the poorest and most vulnerable communities. 

We are dealing with concerns that are almost the same as decades ago--- deteriorating ecosystems, natural resource management that are not sustainable yet, and climate change. Unless these trends are dealt with, the goal of eradicating poverty will remain elusive. Whatever strategies we have that are based on growth and wealth-inequality reduction require both short and long-run horizons. These strategies should always be coupled with what was proven to be effective poverty alleviation programs. The primary struggle here would be a good database so agencies can carry out programs and monitor and evaluate them accordingly. 

How many papers have examined the performance of the country in poverty reduction?  Which of these gave a thorough assessment of the reasons for the recent figures for economic growth, the numerous shocks we experienced, and government policies and programs, both local and national? With the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the gains in early 2013 were probably wiped out.  It is now, more than ever, that the rate of poverty reduction must be focused on, and/or accelerated.

in a time capsule [reentry 2008]

there are a lot of people and events that may come in someone's life but only a few will truly touch and etch a memory. high school without debate is one of them. here you will get to meet people from all walks of life, in several manners, mostly awkward since this is the stage when individuals are battling within--->

i am too young to be an adult, too old to be a child (read: adolescence). in this very stage, we tend to create personalities that we perceive to be pleasing to others. no one to blame: men are social beings- the more they behave the way society dictates them to be, the better it is for everybody. when i was thirteen i met this somewhat deviant classmate-dave. he is not like my bestfriend kristoffer (see him in blog entry BF-EVER), really! he was different!...

at such a young age, he seemed to be unmindful of what others may think of him, of his acts, of his words. don't get me wrong, he was seldom unpleasant but always always surprising. his surge of emotions will bring turmoil to a tamed conforming person. his laughter is contagious but so is his anger. his chivalry will make you smile but his apathy will make you cry too. i have tried to look at dave from a different perspective. (at 13, i thought i was a philosopher, a psychologist, or maybe just another lost soul waiting to be found again).

i saw him persevere as much as i saw him get wasted with foolishness. i saw his leadership, and his hardheadedness as well. i saw him falling in and out of love, hear him shouting and whisper at different times. he was a friend to me (or maybe i was a friend to him) ...i had time with him in a capsule. why dave? coz he reminds me that life is too short to be wasted on hiding and pretending to be so-oh-good when you can taste every detail of badness and somehow learn from it.

but years passed i lost track of my subject--- too many thoughts, too many people, too little time i guess. as we entered the university, i see little and little of him. once i saw him laughing with a group of thug-looking students in a kiosk-they all seem to be enjoying their chat, laughing boisterously at times. once i saw him all alone in a path from one building to another, i tried to catch up on him and ask how he was, he halted, stared at me confusingly, and just smiled. i dismissed it as a call to accept that the dave i knew, though nothing has changed physically somehow isn't exactly the same (who doesn't change anyway?).

i saw him a couple of times in a telecoverage of a campus demonstration (that made me smile and reminded me of my foolishness years before). and then nothing, just news that he graduated and somehow tried to conform in his own way. now...(fast forward) dave has popped out of nowhere and is keeping in touch (truly challenges my thoughts, and philosophies in more ways than one). my time in a capsule with him is opened and remembered but a new capsule is to be made (and so is a new blog entry?). he is a family man, a trusted employee, and a fun friend (though he always refutes coz he has different perspective of the word 'friend').

he still is the dave who helped me cope with culture-shock by making me more shocked (ready, set-laugh!), the dave who helped me bring the trash to the pit (and irritatingly threw the trashcan too when i jokingly suggested so---grrr!), the dave who shouts at her girl in the school campus, the dave who loves to tease --- he is the dave who fought with goliath (read: goliath=the need to conform) and won. there are a lot of people and events that may come in someone's life but only a few will truly touch and etch a memory. dave without debate is one of them.