A Filipino can be poor even if he wears decent clothes and a handy pair of shoes, experts said on Monday.

This was the conclusion of government officials and the academe during the Poverty Conference titled: “Who are the Poor: Understanding the Poor” held at the GT Toyota Asian Cultural Center in University of the Philippines Diliman in Quezon City.

Secretary Dinky Soliman of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) noted that there are many facets of the poor, which are not physically visible.

“Our colleagues, legislators, would tell me you [in the DSWD] are not helping the poor. Those who line up in Landbank wear nice clothes. They don’t deserve it. Or look at them, they look healthy. They are not poor. Just because they are poor, they don’t have the right to have nice clothes and be healthy? That should not be the case,” Soliman said.

Soliman was referring to the monthly long queues at the Landbank of the Philippines branches because it is where the beneficiaries of the Conditional Cash Transfer Program get their monthly cash grant worth P1,400 provided that they comply with conditions promoting human development goals.

These conditions include: children three to five years old must attend Day Care/pre-school at least 85 percent of the time, children six to 14 years old must attend school at least 85 percent of the time, children zero to five years old must get regular health check-up and vaccinations, children six to14 years old must undergo de-worming sessions every six months, parents must attend responsible parenthood sessions and pregnant women must get pre-and post-natal care and be attended to during childbirth by a skilled/trained birth attendant.

Prof. Mary Racelis of the Institute of Philippine Culture in the Ateneo de Manila University defined the poor as those who experience material deprivation, lack of security, dignity and the desperation of chronic and powerless victims; high risks and costs in their lives but few comforts, inequality materialized.

The spectrum of poverty, Racelis cited, stretches from urban poor informal settlers who are deprived of land and housing, rural poor who are farmers, fisherfolk, miners, indigenous peoples, the disabled and the migrants.

However, Racelis agreed with Soliman that material things don’t necessarily paint the truth about a person’s poverty.

“Just because they wear nice clothes, they have two pairs of shoes instead of one, they are not poor anymore?” Racelis said.
 
Flawed perception
The CCT, Racelis cited, is consequently chsanging this flawed perception because the government is investing in the poorest of the poor which do not immediately translates to results, unlike big ticket investments such as physical infrastructure.

“The CCT is a breakthrough because it recognizes that the bottom poor need more attention, that they have the right to be invested in. It enables them maintain a sense of dignity under oppressive, unequal conditions,” Racelis added.

Likewise, Racelis and Sociologist Prof. Randolf “Randy” David of the University of the Philippines observed that aside from the fact that it is hard to define who’s poor, those who are poor tend to have an innate resentment towards people who have better lives.

Racelis traced this apparent hate to the fact that the rich and powerful have a more developed capacity to aspire because of power, material resources, dignity and consciousness of links between immediate objects of aspiration and future results.

“The sense of irony toward dominant norms is maintained by the poor through distance, cynicism and lack of trust. Some are even making fun of the system that oppresses them,” Racelis pointed out.

David lamented that the poor cannot be blamed for distancing themselves, considering that they have been repeatedly used by politicians, jueteng lords, among others, for the politician’s personal gain and leaving them just as poor as they were.

“There is resentment on those people who have better lives than them [poor] and so they refuse to take advantage of the people who want to help them. But we should not be discouraged [in helping them]. We cannot expect a change overnight,” David said.

“We should not lose hope on our poor, because when we do that, we also lose hope in our country,” David added in closing.