Development Begins With People

Development Begins with People. Do you want a first world country? Be a first world citizen first. Development indeed begins with people. I’ve met many Filipinos who have been programmed to be poor. Their very self- definition shouts to the universe, “I’M POOR AND I’LL ALWAYS BE POOR” This twisted core identities, plus insane religious beliefs about money, are like invisible prison bars that keep many Filipinos locked in poverty. Our mission is to free you from that prison. Accdg. to a study, there is one thing that money cannot solve. It cannot solve poverty. No matter how much money you throw in poverty, if the people will not change, nothing will happen. Einstein once said, “Nothing happens until something moves”. This is true in physics as well as in life. And as physics so well demonstrates, more energy is needed to move a stationary object than is required for one that is already moving. That is part of the law of inertia, which states that “A body in motion tends to remain in motion, a body at rest tends to remain at rest.” The poor get poorer because they don’t empower themselves. Nothing happens into their lives because they do nothing to change their situation. People are poor because they have no money. That’s merely the result, not the cause of poverty. Filipinos are poor because of a lethal combination of giant monster of poverty. Our distorted core beliefs, crazy religious beliefs – and being FINANCIALLY STUPID chain us to the prison of poverty. We don’t know how money works. And we don’t know how money grows. So we lose whatever little we have. Because what we know about money comes from friends and relatives who don’t have money themselves- and so, they teach us from their ignorance. And most of the time school never taught us how money worked either because teachers didn’t know- But not anymore. ***

I remember Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki’s foremost question in their book: WHY WE WANT YOU TO BE RICH? These two men have one clear message: The rich are getting richer. The Poor get poorer and like polar ice caps, we are losing our middle class, and a shrinking middle class is a threat to the stability of the Philippines. We want to be rich so we can be part of the solution…rather than part of the problem. This shrinking phenomenon show how middle class is disappearing. We have to realize the importance of this class for our economic success. Generally, it is believed that, for a country to be truly and sustainably prosperous there must be a broad-based middle class that serves as a stabilizing influence on society. A middle-class that has the knowledge, the skills and the resources to foster economic growth and help generate employment for the poor. But so far, the poverty reduction programs we have crafted have focused mainly on being “pro-poor”, “anti-poverty”, helping the “poorest provinces”, etc. We seem to have completely ignored the needs of and the strategic importance of building and expanding the middle class of Philippine society. Thus, while we all agree to want to help the poorest of the poor, a strategy that pays attention to the middle class may be more effective in achieving our MDG goal to halve poverty by 2015! It is then of interest to find out what is happening to the Pinoy middle class. And just who constitutes this middle-class? Does it include the petit bourgeoisie, the Dona Victorina, Angelika Santibañez, Ariel & Maverick

or

whoever we and Inday can relate to? In the United States, ideological and economic theories consider the middle class as consisting of all those who are neither “poor” nor “rich”, or as being a relative elite of professionals and managers, defined by lifestyle and influence. According to the National Convention on Statistics (NCS), socio-economic characteristics will help us define who are the Filipino Middle Class; 1. The middle income class may be defined as those families who, in 2007, have total annual income ranging from P251, 283 to P2,045,280. In terms of socio-economic characteristics, the middle-income families are those who meet all of the following requirements: (1) whose housing unit is made of strong roof materials; (2) who own a house and lot; (3) who own a refrigerator; and (4) who own a radio.

The general population spent the most in the following expenditure items: (1) food, 46.58%; (2) housing and repairs,16.80%; (3) transportation and communication, 7.52%; (4) fuel, light and water, 6.95% and (5) education, 3.83%. The expenditure items with the least shares are (1) recreation, 0.38%; (2) other miscellaneous items, 1.04%; (3) tobacco, 1.19%; (4) household operations, 1.23%; and (5) household furnishing and equipment, 1.76%. On the other hand, it is good to note that the middle income class does not seem to favor a lifestyle of conspicuous consumption. Its top expenditure items are (1) food (2) house rent (3) transportation and communication (4) fuel, light and water and (5) education 2. While the least shares of expenditures go to (1) nondurable furnishings (2) alcoholic beverages; [obviously, the middle class has no passion] (3) tobacco (4) recreation and (5) house maintenance and minor repairs.