A Glimpse of Poverty: What Can A Student Do?

One of the major social problem that the Philippines is currently facing up to this time is the problem regarding poverty. For the past decades, the issue regarding poverty was not that serious. As the matter of fact, the Philippines is one of the wealthiest country in South East Asia before (second to Japan). But that was a long time ago and somehow the Philippine's "Wheel of Fortune" already have changed.

When can we consider or classify someone as a poor?

We can say that a certain person is poor when he/she earns a income below the official poverty line or poverty threshold. The poverty line measures the income needed to obtain both basic and non basic needs for a single year. It is said that 39 percent of Filipino families (estimated 7.2 million) consider themselves food-poor, 33 percent said they are on the borderline, and 28 percent said they are not food-poor. The rate is lower than the record 49 percent in June 2008. This data was actually taken from the SWS survey last June 2009.

Poverty is really a big issue that has to be solved as soon as possible. In my opinion, if the poverty rate will continue to rise then there will certainly be a corresponding effect to this issue. When the percent of poor people will dramatically increase, then a lot of Filipino's will think that there will be no future for them stored if they will only stay here in the Philippines. That's actually happening right now in our country. A lot of poor Filipino's have lost faith in their own country that's why a lot of them are trying to go out in the Philippines and migrate in abroad. In other countries, there they will find any jobs that will give them a good pay. To support this statement, we can see a lot of nursing students right now aiming to land a job in other countries. No offense to the nursing students but is it really worth it to leave your motherland and go abroad? We have a lot of good nurses in our country before and even now but what happened? Most of them went to other countries to get a good salary. And that is one of the corresponding effect regarding on poverty.

But how can we solve this endless issue?

To be precise, there is no way to end this issue regarding on poverty. Poverty is something that can't be vanished in everyone's life, in every nation or even in our world. But even if there is no way to end poverty, there are still ways to minimize it.

It's a fact that there will always be poor or less fortunate people in one country no matter how rich or powerful that country may be. For instance, the United States of America is one of the powerful and richest country together with Japan. But no matter how rich and economically developed and stable Japan and USA may be, still issues regarding on poverty with it's poor people are always and will aways be present.

As a youth, a young citizen in the Philippines, and as a student, there are ways to minimize the alarming percentage of poverty. We can't always depend on our government with this issue. Yes it is the job of the government to help and save our own country from different social and economical problems but that doesn't mean that we, youths, have nothing to do. One of the best way that we can do to minimize the poverty rate is through "change". Yes indeed "change" is a powerful word. We think that "change" is too powerful that sometimes we think that it is impossible to be done. We can't change the government in our current standing right now. Our voices as youth's maybe useful though but we can't always depend on it. We always say "Ang sigaw ng kabataan, dapat pakingan". But come to think of it, is that really the best way that we can do as a youth? To keep on using our voices for complains, opinions and comments regarding on the problems and issues in our country?

Definitely not!

Are voices way too powerful. But we can't afford to abuse the "youth's voice" for complains and comments. What we need is "change". And the change is not on the government or on the president or politicians but rather the "change" must start on us.

Poverty is somehow linked to education. In relation to education, there are poor people in our country because some of them didn't have a chance to go to school. We all know how important our education is. A lot of companies right now only hire people who are a college graduate. And mostly, a lot of the secondary jobs require people who are at least a graduate in secondary level. And in addition, there are still a lot of unemployed college level graduates who are still seeking for jobs because almost all of the companies, not only in the Philippines but also around the globe, seeks for students who have a good records. My point in this issue is that we should somehow "change" the way we are right now. Some of us may already be good in many terms but good is nothing if we can bring out the best in us. We need to understand that if we, students and youths, didn't do good in our current stage in our lives as a student, then there is greater possibilities that we will contribute a percent in the percentage of poverty in our country.

We keep on hearing "Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan". This statement keeps on repeating for many decades. But it is sad to say that not all youths are the reason for success in our country. Sometimes, the youths are the reason on why one's country go down and that is because of the lack of education. Let's not disappoint the citizens of the Philippines for their trust on the youths and the upcoming next generations. As a youth, I truly believed that with good education, we can minimize poverty.

If you have a hard time understanding this post, well just think of the dominoes. The so-called "domino effect " is the best way to summarize it. If we, youths, failed to do our part (first as a student) then everything falls down. Without proper education means no good job, no proper future and eventually, we remain poor together with the society.

~jame m. hernane