32.9 per cent of the Filipinos live below the poverty line--- in a population of roughly 98 million that means a total of 32 million Filipinos. As of January 1, 2009, the Philippines ranked 74th poorest country of the world. While economic development is supposed to be the increase in the standard of living in a nation's population with sustained growth from a simple, low-income economy to a modern, high-income economy this definition has remained a rhetorical supposition in the Philippine government economic development agenda. Although the basic task of the Medium Term Philippine Development Plan for the period 2004-2010 is to fight poverty and build prosperity for the greatest number of the Filipino people, that task seemed to have remained and never took off the drawing board. Latest statistics show that the average Filipino family has only P42.00 to spend for food each day--- this, despite the fact that exports have climbed 35.9 percent in July 2010, reaching $4.5 billion on sustained demand for electronic products. In the meantime, Philippine labor groups have called the legislated a P22.00-daily salary increase in the private sector a big insult. Hunger is literally looming outside those glass portals of air-conditioned malls of urban centers. Indeed, the wealth of the rich is their fortified city; but poverty is the ruin of the poor (Proverbs 10:15). Progress and economic development are like the luxury cruise ship that the poor has missed very long ago--- a big ship passing in the night where wealthy tourists party aboard, filthy rich people lazing in the jacuzzi or passing time in cocktail bars, enjoying sexist talk beside the pool, or simply tossing hundred-dollar chips on the card table-- leaving behind poverty in its foamy wake. Yes, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3).
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