Praising what seems to be a Statistical Success

Secretary Arsenio Balisacan has a way with words. He announces a dramatic decline in Philippine poverty. But reels it back in the open forum by saying that the poverty threshold of 554 pesos per capita does not mean that it is enough to meet a decent living. He is saying that yes, we succeeded in terms of statistics, but not really. That is having a way with words. He is taking back essentially what he is saying as good news. That is because he did not say the whole news; much of it, as people experience it, is not good news, but bad news. He says that only 9.5 percent of the population is statistically poor, meaning around 6.5 million people are officially poor. But his statement also means that the poverty threshold is so low that millions who are classified as 'not poor' are still unable to afford a genuinely decent standard of living. So what gives? Is the supposed dramatic decline in the percentage of the population suffering from poverty a measure of success, or does it hide the truth that a very large percentage of the population are still poor and suffer from various forms of poverty in education, health, housing, and so forth? Take the situation in the Eastern Visayas Region. The poverty incidence among the population is 17 percent, almost double the national rate of 9.7 percent. This is clearly a case of a region left out of the march to national prosperity. It is sadly falling behind like a struggling runner in a race where other regions are already reaching the finish line, but this region is still halfway through the track and gasping for breath. Another alarming finding from the statistical indicators is that 2025 family poverty rates by province are highly uneven. It ranges from 20 percent in Eastern Samar to 3.4 percent in Southern Leyte. The poverty rate in Eastern Samar is more than three times the national rate. (I will not dwell on the possibility of a flaw in how the data was gathered and processed, lest I stray from the topic). What does Sec. Balisacan's announcement of success in the fight to minimize poverty mean to the Eastern Visayas region? First, given the wide gap between the national incidence of poverty and that of Eastern Visayas, he just released statistical figures showing we are far behind. In more precise terms, we are a laggard, a region that moves economically slower than the other regions. I call it a snail-paced development. Or to make it faster, we are jogging while the other regions are running. And so we ask: Are our leaders doing enough to elevate us from being a laggard to being a pacesetter at the head of the pack (hopefully not to run out of wind so quickly)? Second, are we a poor region because we lack the resources to gain better traction on the uphill road to prosperity? We have many resources, like huge tracts of land,that are neglected and left idle instead of being used for gainful economic pursuits. Lack of resources is not the reason for this region's poor showing. Is this a matter of leadership? After a half-century of being led by the same leaders and still being outpaced and outdone by other regions, this is a meaningful question. Here is a useful definition of leadership that can guide us in assessing the situation: Leadership is a combination of character, competence, judgment, courage, and service to a purpose greater than oneself. #OpinYon #WeTakeAsTand #IAmBack