GRPundit

"I bet that if the boy in the photo gets to try the new iPod touch, he won't feel very happy about those tin cans anymore. Ignorance is bliss...and then you die from infection or tropical diseases." -- Ilda Pro on the GRP Community .

But that economic growth only looks great on paper. The slums of Manila and Cebu are as bleak as they always were, and on the ground, average Filipinos aren't feeling so optimistic. The economic boom appears to have only benefited a tiny minority of elite families; meanwhile, a huge segment of citizens remain vulnerable to poverty, malnutrition, and other grim development indicators that belie the country's apparent growth. Despite the stated goal of President Aquino's Philippine Development Plan to oversee a period of "inclusive growth," income inequality in the Philippines continues to stand out. [ Above excerpt taken from " The Grim Reality Behind the Philippines' Economic Growth " published on The Atlantic.]

According to NSCB statistics, poverty incidence stood at 27.9 percent in the first semester of 2012—“practically unchanged” from the same period in 2009 (28.6 percent) and 2006 (28.8 percent). Although poverty incidence was unchanged in the past six years, the number of poor people was expected to be higher in 2012, in the midterm of the Aquino administration, because of the growing population. The Inquirer reported that Norio Usui, senior country economist for the Asian Development Bank, pointed out that the government must solve the problem of jobless growth if it hoped to reduce poverty. “I am not surprised at all,” Usui told the Agence France-Presse. “The benefits of strong economic growth have not spilled over to the people because they still cannot find a job.” He added that the Philippines’  economic model was dependent on consumption, stronger remittances from its large overseas work force, and the business process outsourcing industry, which employs college graduates. ...