The Philippine Online Chronicles

A year ago, Noynoy Aquino III took power and promised change.

Among other things, he promised that under his government, the corrupt Arroyo administration will be held accountable. He promised a government that will no longer be “manhid (insensitive)” to the needs of the people and that the people will be “boss.” He boasted of a government which will tread the “tuwid na daan (straight path)” and that because of all this, “pwede na ulit mangarap (we can dream again)”.

Have things changed? Things have remained pretty much the same: the Arroyos are still in government, tuwid na daan has led to nowhere, but has brought KKK (Kaklase, Kabarilan, Kakampi) to power and for the majority of the people who are as poor as ever, things have gone from bad to worse.

Worsening poverty and deepening crisis

Currently, around 80% of the population remains poor and is barely surviving with less than P104 income per day. These numbers are sure to rise as commodity prices skyrocket and the value of wages decline.

Instead of addressing poverty by providing jobs, decent wages and social services, government has modified its statistics to magically reduce the number of poor families. In its definition, the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) has set the poverty threshold to P37 a day. For the government, only 30% of the people are poor and poverty has almost been eradicated in NCR.

Hunger rates are also on the rise, with 20.5% or 4.1 million families experiencing hunger in 1^st Quarter of 2011, higher that 3.4 million during the 4^thQuarter of 2010. Unemployment has also risen to 11.3 million or 27% of the labor force, higher than the 9.9 million last year. 4,500 Filipinos leave to findwork overseas everyday due to lack of decent jobs here.

Skyrocketing prices, decreasing value of wages

Due to rising prices, real value of wages have dropped under Aquino. The current P404 minimum wage daily in NCR is far from the more than P900 needed for a family to survive. According to research groups, despite nominal increase in wages, real wage levels have dropped by P18 compared to 2001. Under Aquino, real wage value has dropped by P7 compared to 2001.

Despite studies showing companies can actually afford a P125 increase in wages, Aquino has refused to grant the workers’ call for wage hike. Instead he insulted them with a barya-baryang (loose change) P22 COLA for Metro Manila.

Aquino has done nothing to stop the oil price hikes despite studies revealing overpricing and price manipulation. It has been revealed for instance, that oil companies overprice their products by P8 per liter, stealing more than P369 million per day from pockets of the poor. Robin hood for the rich?

Instead of putting a stop to the price hikes, Aquino has further pushed for the hike in MRT and LRT fares, along with the plan for the privatization of train services.

Scrimping on social services

Aquino slashed the budget of education and social services, pushing for further commercialization and privatization of government services. On the other hand, Aquino increased budget for pork barrel, military, foreign debt and dole-outs. Government spends only P6 per capita on education and less than P1 for health.

Aquino has tolerated tuition hikes this year and profiteering of private school owners, resulting to a rising number of drop-outs. More than 340 schools have increased their tuition fees, which CHED approved despite protests and questions from students and parents.

The government’s solution to the education crisis is the K+12 program which has successfully added burden to parents and the entire education sector this year. Public basic and secondary education sector lacks more than 100,000 classrooms, 150,000 teachers, 13M armchairs and 39M textbooks.

Government has also slashed the budget for public hospitals and health services.

(Continue in Part 2: