Those missing paupers and trash fish
By Juan L. Mercado
Sun Star News Philippines, Sunday, June 22, 2003
TALIBON, Bohol—The doctor from Quezon City, and now Miami, snapped his fingers. “I couldn’t put my finger on it,” he explained. “Now, I know what was missing.”
What?” I asked. Dr. Rabin Sarda and I were watching students board pumpboats in the twilight. The outriggers ferry them to homes on islets, off this placid town on Bohol’s eastern coastline.
"Beggars,” he said. “No panhandlers descended on us. There’s none of scrawny children that swarm the streets of Cebu, Davao or Manila.”
Beggars descend on the town during fiestas, it was explained to us.
Desperate grinding city poverty, however, does not visibly mar this birthplace of President Carlos P. Garcia—still fondly remembered here, although his National Historical Commission plaque in front of the newly painted town hall is badly eroded.
Poverty, though, is all too real. It affects about 40 percent of the population.
United Nations indicators show Bohol ranked 25th out of 77 provinces. (In human development, Rizal tops the list. Sulu limps in at the tailend.)
Life expectancy of Boholanos is 69 years, two years shorter than that of Cebuanos’ 72 . But it is 12 years longer than those in Lanao del Sur. “Life is the threshold at which all other hopes begin.
Three out of every 10 here lack access to improved water sources. And seven out of every 100 kids under five are ill-fed and underweight.
Inequality here resembles that of other places, say Bukidnon or Sorsogon. The richest 10 percent consume 30 centavos out of every peso. The poorest 10 percent make do with three centavos.
Thus, from an international perspective, Bohol is wedged somewhere between that of Vietnam and Indonesia, says Philippine Human Development Report 2002. Guimaras is crammed in that slot.
If you probe beyond averages, what emerges?” ask Asian Development Bank lead economist Ernesto Pernia (a native of Bohol) and UP School of Economics’ Arsenio Balisacan.
In ADB’s Economics and Research Paper No. 7, Pernia and Baliscan try to pinpoint what may help people break out of penury.
They marshal provocative “variables”—from political dynasties, terms of trade to agrarian reform—in their analysis of two decades of data.
One must slash through the jargon. (“Growth elasticity of poverty tends to increase monotonically with income quintile.”) But Pernia and Balisacan offer these findings:
“Growth is indeed good for the poor; (but) it is not good enough. Averages mask more than reveal the “true” story about poverty, inequality and growth.”
Incomes of the poor don’t march in lockstep with overall average incomes. “Growth is not sufficient, or nearly so, for poverty reduction.” Changes in poverty, over time, depend not only on the rate but also on the type of economic growth.
Behind averages are “substantial differences in the evolution of poverty across provinces. The poor will benefit even more from growth, if institutions and policies are reformed to favor them as in India and Thailand.
“Political dynasties constrain local economic growth but also restrict access of the poor to basic services. Lack of political competition hurts the lower-income groups, particularly the poorest.
Unless complemented by other public investments like schools, roads per se do not benefit the poor. But “roads raise directly the average welfare of the richest in society.
(Out of every 100 students in Bohol, 33 graduate from high school, the UN has noted. That’s on par with Marinduque—but far behind Laguna’s 60.)
High transport costs lead to “geographic poverty traps as the poor are impeded from taking advantage of economic opportunities elsewhere.
“Irrigation tends to have a pro-poor basis. Farm size does not have significant effects on the average welfare of all but the richest group.
“Other things being equal, agrarian reform raises the average of all” except the richest. So does favoring terms of trade for the farmers.
Pernia and Balisacan insist their peek behind overall stats is not the last word on penury. But “probing beneath cross-national averages (will) better inform poverty reduction strategies and policies.
Indeed, other factors—from population growth, corruption, quality of governance to ecological decay—can embed penury.
The rusting boat sloshing its way through once pristine seas, to plastic-strewn waters, shows that. It’s bow cuts through all kinds of non-degradable garbage: shopping bags, juice containers; bottles; broken plates, etc. Untreated sewage, sludge, oil, chemicals and other garbage contaminate the waters turning it turgid.
Fishers are the first to encounter limits of the sea. All 17 of the world’s major fishing areas reached—or exceeded—sustainable thresholds, UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization warns. Catches of valuable commercial fish have declined.
On Talibon’s wharf, Dr. Sarda and I watch fishers unload their catches from battered sytrofoam boxes packed with ice. They’re small stunted trash fish”--depleting protein supplies for the poor who can’t afford meat.
History tells us that “90 percent of the history of life on earth has taken place in the seas” And the coasts are the natural crossroads between man and the sea. Now, plastic and dirt are sealing off that pathway.
By Juan L. Mercado
Sun Star News Philippines, Sunday, June 22, 2003
TALIBON, Bohol—The doctor from Quezon City, and now Miami, snapped his fingers. “I couldn’t put my finger on it,” he explained. “Now, I know what was missing.”
What?” I asked. Dr. Rabin Sarda and I were watching students board pumpboats in the twilight. The outriggers ferry them to homes on islets, off this placid town on Bohol’s eastern coastline.
"Beggars,” he said. “No panhandlers descended on us. There’s none of scrawny children that swarm the streets of Cebu, Davao or Manila.”
Beggars descend on the town during fiestas, it was explained to us.
Desperate grinding city poverty, however, does not visibly mar this birthplace of President Carlos P. Garcia—still fondly remembered here, although his National Historical Commission plaque in front of the newly painted town hall is badly eroded.
Poverty, though, is all too real. It affects about 40 percent of the population.
United Nations indicators show Bohol ranked 25th out of 77 provinces. (In human development, Rizal tops the list. Sulu limps in at the tailend.)
Life expectancy of Boholanos is 69 years, two years shorter than that of Cebuanos’ 72 . But it is 12 years longer than those in Lanao del Sur. “Life is the threshold at which all other hopes begin.
Three out of every 10 here lack access to improved water sources. And seven out of every 100 kids under five are ill-fed and underweight.
Inequality here resembles that of other places, say Bukidnon or Sorsogon. The richest 10 percent consume 30 centavos out of every peso. The poorest 10 percent make do with three centavos.
Thus, from an international perspective, Bohol is wedged somewhere between that of Vietnam and Indonesia, says Philippine Human Development Report 2002. Guimaras is crammed in that slot.
If you probe beyond averages, what emerges?” ask Asian Development Bank lead economist Ernesto Pernia (a native of Bohol) and UP School of Economics’ Arsenio Balisacan.
In ADB’s Economics and Research Paper No. 7, Pernia and Baliscan try to pinpoint what may help people break out of penury.
They marshal provocative “variables”—from political dynasties, terms of trade to agrarian reform—in their analysis of two decades of data.
One must slash through the jargon. (“Growth elasticity of poverty tends to increase monotonically with income quintile.”) But Pernia and Balisacan offer these findings:
“Growth is indeed good for the poor; (but) it is not good enough. Averages mask more than reveal the “true” story about poverty, inequality and growth.”
Incomes of the poor don’t march in lockstep with overall average incomes. “Growth is not sufficient, or nearly so, for poverty reduction.” Changes in poverty, over time, depend not only on the rate but also on the type of economic growth.
Behind averages are “substantial differences in the evolution of poverty across provinces. The poor will benefit even more from growth, if institutions and policies are reformed to favor them as in India and Thailand.
“Political dynasties constrain local economic growth but also restrict access of the poor to basic services. Lack of political competition hurts the lower-income groups, particularly the poorest.
Unless complemented by other public investments like schools, roads per se do not benefit the poor. But “roads raise directly the average welfare of the richest in society.
(Out of every 100 students in Bohol, 33 graduate from high school, the UN has noted. That’s on par with Marinduque—but far behind Laguna’s 60.)
High transport costs lead to “geographic poverty traps as the poor are impeded from taking advantage of economic opportunities elsewhere.
“Irrigation tends to have a pro-poor basis. Farm size does not have significant effects on the average welfare of all but the richest group.
“Other things being equal, agrarian reform raises the average of all” except the richest. So does favoring terms of trade for the farmers.
Pernia and Balisacan insist their peek behind overall stats is not the last word on penury. But “probing beneath cross-national averages (will) better inform poverty reduction strategies and policies.
Indeed, other factors—from population growth, corruption, quality of governance to ecological decay—can embed penury.
The rusting boat sloshing its way through once pristine seas, to plastic-strewn waters, shows that. It’s bow cuts through all kinds of non-degradable garbage: shopping bags, juice containers; bottles; broken plates, etc. Untreated sewage, sludge, oil, chemicals and other garbage contaminate the waters turning it turgid.
Fishers are the first to encounter limits of the sea. All 17 of the world’s major fishing areas reached—or exceeded—sustainable thresholds, UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization warns. Catches of valuable commercial fish have declined.
On Talibon’s wharf, Dr. Sarda and I watch fishers unload their catches from battered sytrofoam boxes packed with ice. They’re small stunted trash fish”--depleting protein supplies for the poor who can’t afford meat.
History tells us that “90 percent of the history of life on earth has taken place in the seas” And the coasts are the natural crossroads between man and the sea. Now, plastic and dirt are sealing off that pathway.
