Poverty, We Will Kill You

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Poverty. Poverty is an illusion. But it is real. Poverty is a bubble. It is an empty nothing, a lack created by the illusion that contains it. A bubble cannot be reduced or alleviated, only pricked and exterminated. Like a bubble, Poverty cannot be reduced or alleviated, only eradicated. A bubble can be seen only by outsiders, not by insiders of the bubble.

POVERTY AND THE DRUG MENACE

Poverty is like the drug menace, its mother and spawning ground. Reduce it here and it moves and grows bigger elsewhere. Alleviate it there and it comes back here with more mindless intensity.

POVERTY IS GLOBAL

Many Filipinos leave home, sell what can be sold, pawn what can be pawned, to run away from Poverty; to parley near zero income to P30K, or P40K, or P50K, only to find out Poverty sticks like a shadow and will stay till they return. When they go to Saudi, Dubai, or Qatar it is there - Poverty; when they go to London, Paris, or Munich, it is there; when they go to America it is there, so my sister in America tells me. Poverty is global. Escaping it is good, for a time. Some make it, some make it big, a few make it big time. Many don’t and won’t and return as they left, empty, to homes depreciated and families depleted.

Poverty is not all about money. Poverty is the stinging pain of separation; the gnawing emptiness of disconnect; the loneliness of empty pockets, empty homes, and empty rooms, and the longings of emptied souls. I know.

POVERTY IN ABUNDANCE – “Blessed but Cursed” (Cielito Habito)

The Filipino is productive anywhere he/she goes and finds a rich and fertile habitat. Kingdoms or cruise ships; in the US Navy; in Wall Street; in Silicon Valley; in resorts and construction sites of wealthy Arab Kingdoms; in research labs, hospitals, think tanks, and enterprises at the global forefront of breaking-through science and technology. Ph has its own world-class universities and a business management school (AIM) that can match the best in the world.

The Philippine archipelago is one of the richest, most diverse, and most abundant habitats on the planet. Could it be the rich habitat to spawn and unleash Filipino productivity and creativity? Why not? If its communities, resources, and people are managed the way successful and rich enterprises are managed, indeed why not?

CHANGE IS COMING

Comes now ECSOM -- Ecosystem, Community, Sustainable, Organization, Management, a poverty eradicating framework that Dr. SKR, development economist and practitioner, has put together, and a small team of Pinoys is quietly putting into action. ECSOM proposes to eradicate poverty by co-creating Sustainable, Self Reliant Communities that are built, managed, and grown, with the same rigor, vigor, consistency, and professionalism that successful enterprises like San Miguel, Ayala Corp., SM, and MVP Group practice using the same management tools and applying a Social Accounting Matrix that is as developed and empowering as accounting protocols enforced by the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the Philippine Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

For the sake and on behalf of past, present, and future would-be (but no longer) victims of Poverty I dare to say that ECSOM will work. And as ECSOM works and poverty is eradicated, I see CHANGE coming – THE ECSOM VISION:

§ Communities in the provinces will prosper and the households and people there will know it, their Wealth and Welfare being managed and measured by an inter-linked Social Accounting network.

§ Communities in Metro Manila will likewise prosper but it will decongest and become a thriving, clean, green center of tourism and communication and performing arts and a service, trade, and distribution center serving the provinces.

§ With much of government services and heavy and light industries dispersed to provincial satellites, traffic in Metro Manila will ease, and traffic in the provinces will rise and be properly managed henceforth, applying proper urban planning and practice in all areas, moving forward.

§ Productivity of communities, households, and people will rise, tax rates will fall, and tax take will rise. The crime rate will fall. Government sector salaries will rise. The GDP growth rate will rise resulting from rising Community and Household wealth and welfare, not the other way around.

§ As communities prosper, they will deal with and manage their own affairs, build, and fund their own infra and deal with the concerns of Climate Change at their own level and scale.

§ Our OFW brothers and sisters will stop going out in 4 to 7 years and start coming back in 5 to 9; balikbayan will mean coming home for good and better, not coming home for vacations; balikbayan boxes won’t be boxes but 40 footers; going abroad will mean going out as tourists and working abroad will mean doing so as a better option, not a necessity, going out as families and sometimes as enterprises and institutions with a clear mission;

The aim and vision of the author of ECSOM and its implementers is to end Poverty in 10 years. To this vision, I say yes, and in line with the spirit of the time, add my own: Poverty, we will prick you, like a bubble.

POVERTY, WE WILL KILL YOU!

So be it.

--Bob

WAWD Sunday, August 07, 2016

(This piece is dedicated to all the OFWs out there, wherever you are, whatever you do. Analysts say you are the modern-day heroes that helped our nation survive crisis after crisis with the dollars you earn and send. To me, you are simply Heroes of the Soul, dollars not included.)