Policies Exacerbated Poverty in PH

Poverty in the Philippines Exacerbated by Policies

By: Carol Tran, Deysi Chavez-Pineda, Danna Vargas, Erlinda Fuentecilla & Nancy Lopez

Testimonies

Personal Testimonies

Facts

personal testimonies

facts

Personal testimonies

Facts

Personal Testimonies

Facts

POLICIES PRESENTED BELOW

1) Wages

oversea workers & Labor Export

3) agriculture

Health inequity & Healthcare burden

• Click this button to expand more information on each subgroup

Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) are a series of economic policies and reforms imposed by international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank on borrowing countries, typically in exchange for loans.SAPs are grounded in neo-liberal philosophy, which prioritizes the free market and reduces the government intervention in the economy.

• Trade Liberalization removes trade controls and barriers, such as tariffs and quotas, to facilitate the free movement of products between markets.
• Privatization refers to transferring government-owned enterprises, corporations, and businesses to the private sector to enhance efficiency and boost income.
• Deregulation involves reducing or eliminating government involvement and intervention in business, allowing private enterprises to drive economic development.

In the Philippines, successive regimes since 1962 have confronted structural adjustment programs (SAPs), revealing a pattern of policy continuity despite changes in leadership.

• Marcos' New Society (1965-1986) focused on authoritarian rule and economic reforms under Martial Law.

• Aquino's Low-Intensity Democracy (1986-1992) emphasized democratic restoration but retained many economic policies from previous administrations.

• Ramos' "Philippines 2000" (1992-1998) aimed at attracting investment, although it fell short of its goals.

• Estrada's Angat Pinoy' Advance Philiphines (1998-2001) faced corruption and instability, hindering effective policy implementation.

• Arroyo (2001-2010) aimed to establish a strong state, but struggled with the challenges of IMF and World Bank engagements.

How the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund Shape Current Policies in the Philippines

references

• Wages

• Agriculture

• Oversea workers & Labor Export

• Health Inequity & Healthcare Burden

• World bank & international monetary fund

Dolores: Dolores left her son who was only six months old with his grandmother while working in Hong Kong to support for her family. For the first years, she was only able to make two long distance phone calls per week because their was no internet at home.Catalina Magno: Catalina works in Hong Kong and visits home twice a year. She works at a call center and was able to send her two sons in college majoring in engineering to which they eventually dropped out. Francis Tumpalan: Francis was able to go to college but dropped out and got married now living with his wife and his daughter, hoping that his daughter Phoebe "grow up in a complete family."

Click on each profiles of inviduals to learn more about their personal stories.

Life Challenges of Overseas Filipino Workers

Overseas Filipino Workers: The Modern-Day Heroes of the Philippines

Overseas Filipino workers and the Covid 19 Pandemic

The Impact of Migratory Separation from Parents on the Health of adolescents in the Philipines

The Governance of the Kafala Sysem and the Punitive Control of Migrant Domestic workers

The Philippines' Migrant Workers and the Children Left Behind

An examination of the causes, consequences, and the policy responses to the migration of highly trained health personnel from the Philippines: the high cost of living/leaving-a mixed method study

• Why Is The Philippines Still So Poor? Poverty In Paradise

• 3 Stories from the Working Poor in the Philippines

• Republic of the Philippines Labor Market Review - Employment and Poverty

• Precarious Road Ahead: The continuing Struggle of Workers against Contractualization in the Philippines

• Filipino Bishop: Current basic wage in Philippines "unjust'

• Amilita Depra
• Diagnosed with high blood pressure and a goiter, which is an enlarged thyroid gland

• She works at a nail salon making $4 a day.

• Uses supplements to “treat/cure” her condition because she cant afford her medication
• “I hope to work abroad as we are poor, I want my children to finish college. Then this happened, I have high blood sugar. My agency says they can’t send me overseas to work”

Testimonies

• Cyrus Lescano
• 17-year-old infected with Leptospirosis
• Cyrus and his family were forced to travel to a Metro Manila hospital due to the hospitals in province told them they didn't have the medical supplies to treat his disease as complications that arose.

• His insurance, PhilHealth, only covered 2 per cent of the US$22,000 hospital bill
• This financial burden left his family in debt. To pay off the loan his father works as a painter the land title for his sister-in-law's home was used as collateral for the loan.
• His father quotes , “I calculated my daily salary and the loan I need to pay the hospital bill,My salary for one week covers only one day of hospital room fees"

works as a house painter to pay off the loan. The land title for his sister-in-law's home was used as collateral for the loan.

• At least 1.83 million of OFW worked abroad from April to September 2021
• Underfunding health, social sectors, depreciating currency, and making public resources private increased poverty and its economic stability
• Migrant workers returning meant more loans to be taken out for the migration process which puts them to more debt and poverty
• Women were more likely to suffer from terrible working conditions such as abuse, overworking, and assault by their foreign employers
• Filipina women were subjected to the "kafala system" meaning they can't leave their employer and the employer can hold their passport until they finished their contract

Top challenges Oversea workers faces:1. Homesickness(70.20%)2. Salary(35.30%)3. Employer(33.20%)4. Savings(31.40%)5. Language Barrier(23.90%)

Click on the diagrams to expand the images.

Click on the "circle black element" to learn more about the "Kafala system."

Click on the "circle black element" for further descriptions.

“The worker is tied to a particular employer, and if the worker breaks the contract he/she has to leave the country immediately[-]otherwise the employer would cover the return fare.”

In this table chart, Filipino workers were asked to rate their communication level as overseas workers. “WM” as weighted mean ratings from 0 to 4 and using "VD" as verbal descriptions with provided personal remarks to help explain the data.

• Structural Adjusment Programs: Whose Colonizing Instrument

• For Filipino progressives, high time to reject IMF, World Bank neoliberal policies

• The Impact of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) on Health in the Philippines

• A total of 60 million Filipinos are affected by healthcare poverty; with millions of them living in remote locations without access to clinics, lack adequate health literacy, and are unable to pay for medical treatment.
• In 2022, 44.7% of health expenses in the Philippines were out-of-pocket.
• The Phillippines has a shortage on healthcare providers, doctors, and medical equipment.
• Essential medicine in the Phillippines cost 3x more than international prices
• Many Filipinos turn to supplements that are not FDA-approved to help “cure” their health problems.

• Universal Health Care (UHC) Law
• The Universal Health Care Law, passed in 2019, aims to give all Filipinos fair access to high-quality medical care. For the purpose of improving their health, all citizens are automatically registered in the National Health Insurance Program.
• Since millions of Filipinos still lack access to healthcare, it has not been successful in combating the healthcare burden in the Philippines.
• The policy encounters several obstacles, including insufficient infrastructure due to the shortage of medical staff and equipment, as well as financial challenges.

Healthcare Policy

Health Inequity & Healthcare Burden

Click here for more info --->

Top 5 Challenges that affect the future wellbeing of Filipinos

• Rising healthcare costs (82%)
• Inflation (81%)
• Economic slowdown (78%)
• Increasing interest rates (78%)
• Declining health (73%)

• Monthly Minimum Wage - 8902 pesos = $158, yet the recommended for family of 5 is at least 12,030 = 214.
• President Rodrigo Duerte time in administration, his wage increase was the lowest one sine 1986 with only 16..1% increase from 2016-2022.
• Yet current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has not even made a wage increase

• Presidental Decree 442 - Contractualization was adopted in the Philippine Labor Code in 1974. (click here to learn about contractualization)

• Informal Workers - Lack employment contacts, social insurance and aren't protected against unfair dismissal unlike formal workers.
• 2/3 of all jobs are informal
• among wage workers 6 out of 10 are hired informally
• Minimum Wage Policy may contribute to wage inequality as it creates a barrier between formal and informal sectors.

Learn more about wage policy impacts here

• Filipino Bishop: Current basic wage in Philippines 'unjust'
• Precarious Road Ahead: The Continuing Struggle of Workers against Contractualization in the Philippines
• Republic of the Philippines Labor Market Review - Employment and Poverty

Contractualization - The illegal practice of "hiring fixed-term employees usually for 5 months or less and continuously renewing their contracts to avoid giving workers the benefits of regular employment”

• Philippines Battles Health Inequities: From Medical Costs To Worker Shortage | CNA Correspondent

• Improving Healthcare in the Philippines with Affordable Equipment from the USA

• Enabling Healthcare Access in the Philippines

• Filipinos prioritise managing healthcare costs for financial security

• Philippines: Universal Health Care Enacted

• Gaps in Philippine medical system force patients into debt, healthcare workers to leave for work overseas

Cont.

poverty in the phillippines has been exacerbated by several agricultural policies.

These took a multitude of forms such as:

• Export Taxes & Exchange Rates: High taxes and an overvalued currency made farming less competitive, lowering income and discouraging investment.
• Government Monopolies: Agencies like the NFA controlled key markets, distorting prices and reducing farmer profits, contributing to rural poverty.
• Underfunded Investments: Poor funding and mismanagement of agriculture projects like irrigation and R&D stifled innovation and productivity.

• High Tariffs & Prices: Protectionist trade policies kept food prices high and markets inefficient, benefiting a few at the cost of overall economic welfare.
• Limited Export Growth: High protection rates kept agriculture uncompetitive, limiting export growth and missing opportunities to boost rural incomes.

• Policy Bias: Government policies favored manufacturing over farming, reducing investment in agriculture and keeping farmers poor.

Jorgie: Explains mother’s experience with increases in rice prices

• Reflects the distorted market conditions in the Philippine agricultural sector.
• Emphasizes the lack of support and potential interventions that could benefit families in poverty.

“They lived in a rural area with no electricity and proper housing.”

• Reflects the broader systemic issues in the agricultural sector that have left many rural communities impoverished.

Jinky babysits in the mornings and sells food in the afternoons, earning around 800 pesos a week. Despite both jobs, she struggles to make ends meet for her family.Belinda offers combined manicurist and pedicurist services for $2, earning around 300 pesos a day. She rarely takes days off to ensure she can provide for her family's basic needs such as school lunch and transportation.Fernando, a street sweeper, earns $2.99 a day, which he finds insufficient to cover his family's needs, often relying on soup to stretch meals and prioritizing his child's lunch money. He avoids medical visits unless there are “medical missions” (free or discounted services).

Belinda

Jinky

Fernando

To learn more about their stories and of others click the sources below:

• 3 Stories from the Working Poor in the Phillipines

• Why Is The Philippines Still So Poor? Poverty in Paradise

• My mother's poverty story

• Agriculture-Sector Policies and Poverty in the Philippines: A Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Analysis

“For almost 80 years, the IMF-WB have since left their mark on economies especially in the global South – often with adverse consequences. The 2023 Annual Meetings will be held in a continent wracked by colonialism and continuing economic and political interventions by powers and global institutions”, said IBON International in a statement. “The World Bank and the IMF bear major responsibility for the widespread poverty in the Philippines through its imposition of onerous loan conditionalities and so-called development programs that resulted in higher prices, stagnant wages, union busting, cuts in social spending, higher regressive taxes, and displacement of farmers and indigenous peoples”, said Raymond Palatino, Bayan secretary general.

The following statements were given by Filipino progressives who, in 2023, protested in front of the Department of Finance

“Marcos Jr. has collaborated with the IMF-WB to roll out policies of the Department of Finance and the Department of Agrarian Reform which are anti-poor and anti-farmer. The government has continuously coddled neoliberal policies which gives leeway to foreign corporations and big businesses to plunder our lands and natural resources”, said Cathy Estavillo, Bantay Bigas spokesperson. “Marcos Jr. has allowed the full foreign ownership of local industries in the country such as telecommunications, mining, energy, among others. His first year in office has elevated the Philippines to the top 5 of the World Bank borrowers. We have no illusion that the IMF-WB, which played a key role in shaping anti-people policies in various government agencies, will change. Their only interest lies with maintaining the US-imperialist dictates of ensuring capital over economies,” Jainno Bongon of the ILPS Commission 2 said.Click here to read the rest of the article