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[Blog Action Day 2008] Poverty: A Problem Beyond the Material

Poverty, like love, is perhaps one of the most abused words. It is carelessly thrown around by people, most of whom do not know what it’s like to truly live in poverty. Millions of children worldwide are starving, and yet a few fashion-obsessed yuppies will claim that they are in poverty because they cannot buy this season’s coat from Balmain, or the stylish black, pointed toe pumps from Christian Louboutin. Others feel poor because they cannot have the latest gadgets or the fastest cars, eat at the best restaurants, or party at the hottest night spots as often as they want. Admittedly, I somewhat belong to this category.

Many people dream of living a grand life, and are blinded by covetousness and excessive desire for all things grand: shamelessly haughty in the face of widespread poverty. Ironically, this has been the norm for decades, and our beloved Philippines is no stranger to this. A huge percentage of the whole Filipino population could not afford to avail of their most basic daily needs, especially those in the rural areas, and yet dozens of shopping malls and entertainment centers spring up like wild mushrooms.

Imelda Marcos, the beacon of the ultimate Filipino dream of making it big, had personified and made this irony come to life. As the former First Lady and ambassadress extraordinaire, she had lived opulently in the hopes of being the masses’—the poor Filipinos’—star to look up at from their slums. She had tried to embody the ideal of beauty and grandeur by coveting thousands of shoes and hundreds of Filipiniana ternos, and erecting a handful of magnificent centers for Art and Culture. Imeldific, she truly was.

In the grand scheme of things, the Steel Butterfly was on to something; however, she had missed on a lot of things. She had the concept of educating the poor through visceral means, but she had never realized that it wasn’t enough to save them from damnation. What would have saved the poor Filipinos from slipping further down the poverty pyramid was more concrete means of providing better education and livelihood.

Education, the great equalizer, can save millions of Filipinos from darker futures by providing more job opportunities for them, greater bargaining power with investors, and higher-paying jobs. Perhaps the best legacy the solons of our generation can leave our Motherland is the improvement of the quality of education to give the poor a way out of poverty’s cruel maze. Similarly, providing livelihood for the poor will help them develop skills they can use in establishing small-scale industries in the future. Big dreams, yes, but only when we take small steps do we surely get to reach a dream.

Poverty, like love, does not need profound words or actions. Simple preventative measures and progressive actions taken in small steps together will help alleviate the problem of poverty. Now, where do we start?

*Sources of photos:

http://www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/archives/images/Tip.jpg

http://www.asianews.it/files/img/ASIA_Starvation_North_Korea_(300_x_225).jpg

http://www.piercemattie.com/jewelrypr/Imelda%20Collection.jpg