The Government's own Statistical Office has confirmed Filipinos are poorer today than five years ago (2003).

This belies the Palace and the local drum beaters baseless claim that poverty is being licked.

Last week, the NSCB (National Statistical Coordination Board) released Poverty Statistics saying that as of 2006 more Filipinos (4.7 million) were considered poor compared to only (4.0 million) in 2003. Those Filipinos considered poor rose from only 24.4% in 2003 to 26.9% in 2006.

"Poor" is defined as people who "cannot sustain their basic needs as food, health, education and housing." In parallel vein, the "food poor" or those who can barely eat rose from 1.7 million in 2003 to 1.9 million in 2006.

Will the Government now close its own statistical office for "telling the truth" about poverty in the country?

Even if we grant the annual population growth of 2.5% per annum, the total of the poverty level should not have reached 4.7 million in 2006. That only means more people are getting poorer by the year, despite government propaganda. The threshold of "poverty" in the Philippines for a family of 5 is P6,274 a month. Any family of five earning less than that is at the "poverty level." Look around you and see for yourself how true the statistics are.

But admittedly, population growth rate can also be a factor in affecting poverty levels. For instance, the average GDP economic growth (2000-2006) of the Philippines of 5.4% - given the 2.5% population per annum - is really just 3.0% effectively.

NEDA, the top Government Economic Planner, admitted that in 2006, the rise in prices (that impacts the poor) was largely caused by the implementation of the increase of the VAT from 10 to 12%. In other words, in exchange for improving the image of the country's ability to borrow some more debt (fiscal stability day sic to VAT), Juan de la Cruz had to bite the bullet. Is that fair and equitable?

Many analysts in the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Makati Business Club are of the opinion that one of the reasons for grinding poverty in the Philippines is the level of pervading corruption - the country has been named the "most corrupt nation in Asia."

Corruption siphons away from the beneficiaries (Filipinos) many social services like food, medicine, livelihood, financing and housing into the pockets of kleptocrats. For instance, the alleged P6.5-billion ZTE-NBN kickback is more than half of the entire government budget for the Department of Health (DOH) and more than five times the entire budget of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH). The money would have paid for more than 49,000 open heart surgeries, 325,000 cataract surgeries and purchase antibiotics for at least 6.5 million Filipinos.

Now they would be in the hands of a few Greedy Plus-Plus.

Even administration senatorial ally Edgardo Angara had confirmed that the country loses about P20 billion every year to corrupted deals.

This comes close to the estimated losses due to corruption of P21 billion by the Makati Business Club based on the P105-billion infrastructure budget last year. This is further corroborated by the Word Bank in its study (Combating Corruption in the Philippines) that based on the (Lozada version) 20% "Permissible Corruption Commission," the country lost P24.5 billion (2007) and will lose P29.5 billion(2008). Is it interesting to note that the ZTE-NBN deal alone, the alleged bribe money reached an astounding P6.5 billion.

Independent statistics on Corruption are now beginning to confirm one another.

Asian Development Bank (ADB) Chief Economist Ifzal Ali confirmed that declining public infrastructure (emaciated by large scale graft) increases the cost of doing business in the country, making the Philippines uncompetitive. If foreign investment shies away from the country, then no jobs are created - abetting poverty.

This lack of investment also reduces the tax base of the country - the capitalists and labor. The ADB this week released a book on: Philippines: Critical Development Concerns and specifically cited corruption in governance as the reason there is little private investment in the country.

There is indeed an umbilical cord that ties corruption and poverty in any country.

Unlike the laughable DTI secretary Peter Favila who believes his own propaganda, the country is actually one of the least investment-attractive nations in the Far East. For instance, for 2001-2006, RP only had Foreign Investments total of (US$1.1 billion) compared to Thailand (US$6.1 billion) and Malaysia (US$4.0 billion). This was, according to the ADB, partly due to the low industrial base of RP as a percentage of GDP.

Manufacturing as a % of GDP was only 23.5% for RP, 34.8% for Thailand and 30.6% for Malaysia. Our road network is only one-fourth of that of Malaysia and only one-sixth that of Thailand while our per capita electric consumption is only one-third of Thailand and one-eight of Malaysia because electric power cost if high.

Who will indeed invest in the country?

ADB's chief economist Ali says that the 7.3% GDP growth of RP last year (2007) may not be sustained. Every economist worth his charts know that the growth was largely driven by Government "expenditure" since it was election year. Being a "mercenary" money, the expenditure did not create economic efficiencies but increased money velocity - which is inflationary. (They are now revising the GDP targets for 2008 to below 6.0% on a non-election year.)

Thus one likewise saw a January inflation shot up to 5.4%, one of the highest in many quarters for the country. Because of this the United Nations World Food Program country director Valerie Guarnerie had sounded the alarm (Philippine Star March 8, 2008 issue) RP may have to subsidize more food for more poor people soon. The UN is already providing food for 1.1 poor Filipinos today.

In the same study, the ADB was surprised to conclude that the country seems to be losing mostly skilled workers to the OFW market every year shown by the pattern of remittances statistics centered likewise to Metro Manila beneficiaries. Thus the trickle down effect to those who need the most in the rural areas may not be felt, the ADB concluded.

The US$12 billion in annual OFW remittances has been one of the most dependable adjunct in keeping the Philippine economy and the Philippine peso afloat.

People conclude that opulent lifestyle in a poor country can only be sustained with graft.

It is disgusting to note some people declare that their hearts bleed for the poor and gofor anti-poverty gimmicks but actually steal and participate in defrauding the coffers of government by influence and policy peddling and the SOP (standard operating procedure for graft) system.

If they still have the heart to note, the country is burning as the worsening poverty statistics above would show. They should stop fiddling their violins on the ruins of a distressed, impoverished nation.

The above analysis clearly shows Filipinos should not ignore the crusade against government corruption because unlike what Government claims, it is one of the major roots not the effect of widespread poverty.

Can it get any clearer than this?

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