COVID-19 In Philippines: The Starving Urban Poor. What Went Wrong? | Insight | Poverty In Asia

It has one of the toughest and longest lockdowns in the world, but ultra-strict quarantine measures have left more than 5 million Filipinos hungry, more than 10 million people have lost their jobs, and their livelihoods have been destroyed. Why did the pandemic affect the

poor

est? the

poor

so hard when a crisis like this hits an egalitarian society like the Philippines, it is like amplifying the inequality in the social division, so the poor are the most affected by an equitable distribution of the impacts of this crisis As the Philippine economy crashes into its worst recession in decades, how can the country's poor escape crushing

poverty

?

Manila, the capital of the Philippines, a business center plagued by economic disparity as the city progresses. 35 percent of its population, or more than 4 million, still reside in slums. workers who have to deal with meager incomes of less than two dollars a day and now Manila has become the new epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Southeast Asia with slums considered viral hotspots for the transmission of the disease, the space is a luxury for the rich, so the poor live in small houses in crowded and congested communities, the vulnerability, of course, to any type of infectious disease, is the closed space, the subsequent interaction, the number of people you interact with , the poor really have it worse in normal times.

They also have it worse, I think in times of crisis right now, but the country's

urban

poor face a fear much more terrifying than kovid: the fear of hunger as work and income dry up. Hunger is forcing the

urban

poor to cope in unthinkable ways at midnight in one of Manila's largest slums, bernadette sablazar, 64, and her neighbor, elena perena, along with elena's daughter, 16-year-old Leia violate quarantine restrictions in search of food, as an elderly Bernadette must stay home and, like her teenager, Leia cannot do so either. being outside their residence, but despite all the restrictions, they venture out during curfew hours and risk getting caught, but are too hungry to care about foreign rules, they are making their way into the Diviria Manila's largest public market to look for vegetable scraps or collect produce scraps given away for free by generous vendors the lockdown has crippled elena and bernadette's ability to work and earn income bernadette is an egg seller who used to earn US$15 per day Elena is a freelance masseuse who could earn up to 30 US dollars on good days, she was doing well enough to even set up a small shop to help with the family's daily expenses, but everything fell apart during the first week of the confinement.

Elena's family was forced to consume all the food they had in this small store. The crisis has significantly damaged the asset base of the urban pool. Street vendors could not sell on the streets. Jeepney drivers. Pedicab drivers. Tricycle drivers. They couldn't operate they couldn't go out to pick up passengers, so it would be very difficult for them to recover economically from this crisis like bernadette and elena, many Filipinos experienced hunger amidst the blockade; In fact, the incidence rate of hunger in the Philippines is at its highest level in six years according to the Social Weather Station, a non-profit research institution, the survey reveals that 20.9 percent or 5.2 million of Filipino families have experienced involuntary hunger at least one in the last three months of the quarantine period after four hours Elena Bernadette and Leia have collected more than enough to survive the next two days and are planning to donate their extras for their neighborhood to the Philippine government has arrived with aid to help alleviate the problem of hunger among the population a week after announcing his quarantine measures Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law an emergency cash subsidy package for 18 million low-income families that beneficiaries will receive at least US$100 up to a maximum of US$165 each month for two months.

City governments and village leaders were given a month to distribute aid and the aid had to arrive quickly, but many like Elena did not receive their subsidy immediately, even after waiting. It's been more than a month since I borrowed enough money to buy rice. The Christmas depression, if it weren't for these loans and Elena's risky adventure in the market today, her family could have become seriously ill or, worse yet, starved to death. Lockdown abroad is doing enough to ease your pain will help get there in time before the situation gets out of control, so soon after announcing a nationwide lockdown, President Rodrigo Duterte signed the amelioration program law into law social or sap under the sap, the government provides 18 million low-income families with much-needed emergency cash subsidy each beneficiary will receive at least 100 US dollars every month for two months to city governments and community leaders The villages were given one month to distribute the aid.

The distribution had to be quick so that the aid reached the most vulnerable segments of the population, as Elena Perena, an urban poor, qualifies as a beneficiary of the social improvement program. She expected to immediately receive the promised cash subsidy for the first month, but the aid did not arrive until two months later. Help was not only slow but also very little. Elena received only 138 US dollars in her first month of subsidy, equivalent to about four days of her usual daily income, it is the emergency cash subsidy, it is only about a quarter of

what

a family of five really needs in a month to survive, according to current estimates by economists and The urban poor argue well, the point is that the subsidy was not intended to be a panacea, it was only intended to be a partial subsidy, so we have to also recognize that the government has their own risk limitations, they do not have infinite money.

The problem is even more serious because she has 10 children and 13 grandchildren living under the same roof, except for one, all of them have no income after their employers temporarily ceased business. The government claims it has nothing left to extend its subsidies. But the harsher reality is that Elena's family is much better off than most other families. They had waited much longer to receive their emergency cash subsidies for the first month. Three months into the lockdown, five million families are still wondering if their raid will ever come. They waited so long and also the garbage they got was almost nothing, equivalent to about nine pesos per person per day for the last five months.

Nothing can be done about it, a big cause of delay in a random distribution of aid, us too. I have heard a lot about irregularities in the distribution some local officials were prioritizing their own relatives their own friends would probably prioritize their friends because we have a very weak democratic system that barely works in some areas and that of course affects the poor who are supposed to be They benefited fairly from the distribution, but some of them could not receive this assistance because they were not part of that patreon customer system in their area according to the law, an irregularity like this is a criminal offense in the second month of the blockade, The country's government received more than 2,000 complaints against village council officials over delays in aid distribution.

Currently, the Philippine Prosecutor's Office has charged 134 officials in various cases related to corruption. Currently, 50 officials are suspended from their positions, but the fact of the matter is that local governments are Philippines is also facing systemic problems and has only just begun the transition to a national identification system, although a newly created law requires it. That's why city governments had to rely on an outdated list of their voters based on a national census that was conducted five years ago as a result. many Filipinos have been excluded during the pandemic, even if we wanted to have universal cash transfers, we couldn't because there was no mechanism, there is no way to locate anyone now, almost six months after announcing provisions for emergency cash subsidies that the government has given the second month's subsidy to almost 95 percent of the beneficiaries, the original sin of the social administration program is that the government was so stingy with it that there was no sense that they wanted to help the greatest number of people as quickly as possible.

Elena is not sure if her second month of allowance is coming meanwhile Elena's deaths are piling up she currently owes around 100 US dollars to friends in addition to the utility bills Salomon has to pay in Elena's family is also has become too poor to protect against

covid

19 the

philippines

are known to have one of the most restrictive lockdowns in the world a special pass was needed to move around and buy essential goods. Those who violate curfew and social distancing measures or do not wear a mask will be punished, ranging from fines to arrests in mass gatherings such as protests are prohibited, but in the third week of the lockdown, a hundred Filipinos gathered on edsa, a main road where historic protests occur.

César Galamosa, sixty-four years old, was one of them, since he was old and was not allowed to leave his residence, but César was. desperate lives paycheck to paycheck after losing his job as a foreign worker hungry caesar decided to join his neighbors in edsa he arrived at nine in the morning there was no aid distribution in sight later a police team arrived to disperse the crowd Driven time and options are running out for the urban poor, will the government be able to offer a solution or will anger spill into the streets three weeks after the

philippines

lockdown, a commotion broke out over food aid in edsa, a of Manila's main arteries, The day before the incident, rumors spread through the San Roque slum that a sack of rice would be delivered as aid on EDSA, although mass gatherings are prohibited.

The next day about 300 people showed up, the police soon arrived and advised them to disperse, but they left. Out of desperation, César Villamosa, 64, stayed. You know, the pandemic really put pressure on the poor, they are already the most vulnerable. They put pressure on the floor because the absolutely poor would not want to get sick as much as possible. they want to be sick because they know it will cost them money they know it will prevent them from working the poor don't want to get sick but they will risk life and limb if they are not going to be able to earn money, this is how Caesar ended up detained for five days along with 20 other people were charged with five cases of alleged violation of quarantine rules and health emergencies these crimes could have detained them for six months in the Philippines violations are quite common since the lockdown was implemented in the Philippines in mid-March more than 300,000 violators of quarantine were detained by authorities violators were warned fined detained or charged most of these violators come from impoverished families the night of the commotion philippine president rodrigo duterte addressed the country about the incident he suspected leftist insurgents They were behind and he promised to act harshly against the space between us there is no understanding there is no social consideration there is no value given to the life that is supposed to be saved that is the most difficult part for me to understand you impose a quarantine because you want to save lives, you want to save lives by spreading, stopping the spread of disease and yet here we are, the government has very little regard for that life, it's just going against the grain, the very green for humanity, Caesar and the rest. 20 detainees are now free on bail paid by two influential celebrities.

Freeing them cost more than US$6,400, an amount they could not have raised on their own. Fortunately, they also received free legal assistance. If it weren't for them, César and his family would have nothing. He has no choice but to accept the punishment, but Cesar continues to face his

poverty

which is getting worse day by day, almost six months into the lockdown, he and his daughter are still waiting for a job, he is also facing a pile of debt and the prospect of being evicted. from their rented house, even Ironically, while trying to cope with the problem of hunger, many urban poor come to Manila in search of a better life away from rural poverty, but even in the city life has been a constant struggle.

The coveted 19 has threatened to displacealmost 11 million workers. of the informal sectors and erase years of progress in poverty alleviation. The truth is that there are not enough policies and mechanisms to help lift the poor out of their poverty, but I also think that because people are seeing how unequal the Philippines is and how problematic our politics are. I think we are in the middle of a moment where people are wondering if this is the government that we deserve,

what

are these economic policies that we need, why are people doing so badly in the Philippines, which has been fighting chronic poverty since Since the late 1960s, for decades, the nation has always been known as Asia's sick man, but a series of economic reforms in the early 2000s paved the way for growth, from opening one country to another to international trade. , foreign direct investments such as business process outsourcing, as well as hospitality and tourism.

In 2013, the Philippine economy finally gained strength. the world bank described the philippines as

asia

's rising tiger with its gdp steadily rising the philippines was no longer

asia

's sick man but an emerging nation with one of the most promising economies in the world philippines' poverty rates were finally falling, but they were just numbers These income indicators actually fail to capture many other dimensions of poverty, but secondly, I think it's the worst for us. In reality, it is used to hide high levels of poverty. We have the 50 richest Filipinos with a combined wealth of P4.1 trillion. which is equivalent to the combined wealth of the poorest 60 to 70 million Filipinos that makes no sense clear evidence of unequal exclusionary growth is right in the slums that the urban poor have been struggling to get their own homes for the last 10 years , the informal settlement of Caesar has defied eviction and demolition.

Around six thousand families live in this government property, but a part of this real estate has been sold to a private developer without any plan to resettle its slum dwellers. Thus, while GDP has increased employment opportunities and better working conditions among the urban poor have barely improved, many of the urban poor remain informal economy workers, jeepney drivers and street vendors. brick stores, small convenience store owners or manual workers in urban areas. Construction industry statisticians and economists estimate that at least 62 percent of Filipinos work in the informal economy, that is, around 30 million informal workers suffering from decades of income inequality.

There are also many workers who have no legal protection, but they are still there, you know, street vendors, tricycle drivers, jeepney thieves, they are workers, they are contributing to the economy, but they are not part of the mantle of the legal environment. , it is not surprising that the urban poor like Elena Bernadette and Caesar are the most vulnerable during the pandemic, the urban poor like them had already had it worse before 19 disguised as mere day laborers without safety nets and social protection. I keep calling this pandemic so cheaply a slow-moving form of disaster, why because disasters? or crises do not exist in a vacuum.

In the case of the Philippines, we have very weak democratic institutions and for us to manage this well, to begin with, it has reached this unprecedented level because I think it was poorly managed from the beginning, the Philippine government wants to recover from the pandemic by offering tax breaks corporate and SME lending, but has so far been silent on helping the urban poor in the informal sector or perhaps there really isn't any now in urban areas. The poor are turning to self-help as a new sector sinks into poverty, but how much can they do to solve their financial and health world in Manila, Philippines?

The urban poor are left alone to survive the pandemic in San Roque, an informal settlement. With approximately 30,000 residents, many have been unemployed during the six months of quarantine. In lieu of their jobs, the city government helped distribute rice to local residents. To solve hunger at its community fair, Sidco decided to help at a soup kitchen, the non-profit organization. The organizations helped raise funds to launch this initiative. They established 28 community kitchens throughout San Roque, providing breakfast to 3,000 residents. In addition to this kitchen, the nonprofits helped bring together community health volunteers like Jelen Rossilo, as most of them are trained volunteer doctors taught them how to respond to the threat of Covet-19 infections and what they can do to avoid getting sick, but they have a more important task: volunteers like Gellin search for hidden symptoms of 19 in the neighborhood and deliver food to those under quarantine in closed, congested places where the coveted virus would likely thrive mass testing in San Roque has not even residents also claimed that government health workers were avoiding their slum community.

They have been told that government leaders lack personal protective equipment or PPE. This is also why most residents feared for their lives. From the point of view of individual vulnerability, the poor are already vulnerable. Your immune system is low. They do not eat the foods they need to survive. having the rest mandatory precautionary measures such as safe distancing hand washing, hand sanitation and wearing masks are luxuries for slum dwellers depends on private donations to help their community, but almost six months into the quarantine the help Funds are also running out. No new promises have arrived at the Chalita community kitchen.

It used to feed 75 people five times a week. Now the feeding of 75 people has been reduced to 35 twice a week. This week will actually be the last one she will be hungry, as it may be that Chelita has not been eating the meals they had prepared because she feels that others need the food more than her, I know, but community volunteers like Faye They don't give up. She decided to grow vegetables in her backyard to be a source of food whenever someone calls for help at the end of the day. These community kitchens dry up and we stop providing food, the government has to intervene.

At the end of the day, it is your responsibility to provide aid and help the urban poor who are struggling in their own neighborhood in their own city, so if the government does not part with that it is like you are exonerating the state of its responsibility to provide the assistance necessary, especially for the urban population. Kellen can't do much to protect herself if she becomes infected with Covet 19, she won't get any free treatment. Government extends aid to those contributing to estate health insurance, but Gellan is too poor to make voluntary contributions abroad As many of the urban poor struggle alone during community quarantine, another section of society is increasingly desperate .

Jeepney drivers resort to begging or Protesting to get back to work Jeepneys are the most popular transportation in the Philippines. It is known for its overcrowded seats, so the government allows less than five percent of jeepneys to ply the roads as a containment measure. If we look at your numbers, there are more than I think, 170,000 jeepney units across the country, so we're talking about 170,000 families across the country that depend on the jeepney industry, so multiply that by five or six members, so we are talking about about 1 million people who depend on the jeepney industry. alone and if we are not serious about listening to their demands or at least addressing their appeal, then it is as if you are basically ignoring a section of your population now, in just six months, jeepney drivers have fallen into poverty chito bustamante had been driving a jeep for more than a decade to save for his dream home, now not only is he out of work, he also doesn't have a house to live in, he had to rely on loan sharks to help supplement his unstable income and send his seven children to school. income 19 years Old Trisha is Honorario's eldest daughter who has one year left before finishing her engineering degree.

All she wants is to graduate from college, be gainfully employed, and help her father send her money. Adding to her concerns is a controversial government plan to phase out the jeepneys they need. Jeepney owners as a fee and chito must upgrade to environmentally friendly vehicles, but it is an investment they cannot afford, they are still paying loans for the jeepneys they currently own. The government has not extended assistance to jeepney drivers such as chito and honorarium, except for emergency cash subsidies. It's also unclear if they will ever get back on the roads even when Covert 19 ends.

We know that at the end of the day the GP drivers will be displaced. We agree that GPS needs to be modernized, but there is a way to do more than just GSP. without leaving poor and vulnerable drivers behind again, it implies that the government subsidizes the transition and that is the basic demand of gp drivers in the midst of these uncertainties, the honorary children are the ones who suffer the most, the dreams Trisha's family is put on hold when Honorary was forced by circumstances to keep his children out of school. The family's school now sells native delicacies so the family can eat three times a day, while Cheeto has to find other ways to put food on the table.

The only recourse is to search for foreign trash while strangers fear him. Chito also has fears. He cares. getting infected with the garbage he collects for this morning he exchanged the stash he collected for one US dollar and 50 cents is enough to buy him a kilo of rice the government is not doing enough that's why they are so dismissive because they know the The poor Filipinos have suffered so much Throughout all the years they will survive, it is not a question of them recovering, even if they push the ground, they will do their best to make do with what they have.

Poverty is a vicious cycle, a self-perpetuating condition that can't simply be broken without outside help. Stuck in a daily struggle for survival. Before the pandemic, that challenge was almost insurmountable, but a crippling lockdown caused by the covert 19 has turned that challenge into a huge battle against hunger and hopelessness, how long can the poor hold out? To have hope before hunger takes over, how much longer must they wait before their cries for help give way to silence?