REFLECTION

The social issue documentary that I watched is all about poverty. All I can say is
even though the Philippines has improved their economy and lives of people are still in poverty.
Though the country’s economy is not doing much to help these people to have a better life.
Economically, poverty is when people do not meet basic certain requirements for a better living
condition, for example; food, clothing, and shelter. In rural areas, the only way people can earn
income is through agriculture, therefor, depending on the existing of farming and fishing. These
people are forced to work in agricultural areas because they don’t get enough education or don’t
get education at all. This causes poverty and unemployment to be much more higher with
indigenous people than any other places like the cities. From Philippine’s history of corruption
until now, it still shows signs of high country struggles. Natural disasters had been a long term
issue that many Filipinos face, but has been dealt with no effective ways for a long time. Hunger
is the extreme effects of poverty in the Philippines. With the little money to buy food, Filipinos
are having to survive on very limited food, even when food supplies are stable, they are most
accessible in other areas where people have enough income to purchase the food. And with such
an unequal distribution of income, there is a low demand food supplies in less developed areas that
are home to low-income residents. The quality of food is also decreasing-rice is used to be the
main source of food for Filipinos, but now it has largely been replaced with instant noodles, which
is cheaper but less nutritious. As a result, malnutrition has become a lot more common. With taking
a toll on Filipinos, parents often can’t make enough money to support their families, children then
have to be taken out of school to work in harsh conditions. Statistics show that around 3.6 million
children, from ages 5-17, are child laborers in the Philippines. With conditions so troublesome,
people often resort to crime and thievery to survive. Research found that one of the overwhelming
reasons to steal is due to difficulties caused by poverty. Without proper employment, people turn
to stealing, especially since family sizes are rather large, and there are a lot of people to provide
for. There are too many people and not enough resources. And with such conditions, people
become desperate and practice drastic measures to provide for themselves and their families.
REACTION

In almost all of the places in the Philippines today, inequality, the gap between the
rich and the poor, is quite high and often widening. Poverty has always been present. It is one of
the biggest and most evident problems in the Philippines. Poverty is the state or condition of having
little or no money, goods, or means of support. Poverty and inequality in the Philippines remains
a challenge. There are several causes on why a huge number of people in the Philippines
experience poverty. One of which is the inequality in the income distribution. The rich earns higher
income than the poor. This unequal income distribution will cause the rich and their families to
get richer and the poor to only get poorer to the point of not being able to acquire basic necessities.
Another cause is the lack of quality education. Since not all people are able to have the best quality
of education, many of them will have a hard time competing with graduates from other countries
in terms of getting a job. The lack of jobs is another factor on experiencing poverty. Since there is
a lack of jobs, it would increase the number of unemployed people. Unemployed individuals will
not be able to earn a living thus need to depend on others who are employed for basic needs. Also,
overpopulation contributes on why a huge number of people in the Philippines experience poverty.
With a rapidly growing population, it will be hard to accommodate all the people in the labor force.
It will be hard to ensure the every Filipino will be able to get a job and earn a living. The more
people that is unemployed, the more people will suffer from poverty and have trouble
accommodating their basic needs. Another cause is corruption. Instead of having to improve the
country by the means of the money of the people, it ends up in the pockets of some unjust
politicians causing the condition of the country to worsen. As the poverty in the Philippines
continue to worsen, the people, mostly in the state of poverty, experiences consequences. One of
which is experiencing health problems. Since they are in bad living condition and they are not able
to sustain their needs, they are much prone to having health problems. Also, poverty in the
Philippines increases crime rate. Poverty causes people who are desperate for money to rob and
do crimes for easy cash. Lastly, child labor is one of the effects of poverty. Children no longer go
to school in order to work to be able to survive. Many people suffer from poverty. In order to avoid
poverty, we should solve the causes such as unequal income distribution, lack of quality education,
lack of jobs, overpopulation, and corruption. If we are able to solve this problem, we would lessen
poverty, thus, would help lessen health problems, crime rate and child labor.
RECOMMENDATION

As a young student, I would like to suggest some factors which would be helpful
in our journey to reduce poverty. Basically we have to take necessary steps to reduce the population
in our world. Natural resources don’t increase according to the population which is increasing at a
high speed. When we consider the families in poor countries, they have at least six or seven kids.
But those kids do not have a proper health or the parents cannot provide proper education for them.
And also those parents cannot provide good foods filled with suitable nutrients to their kids due to
lack of wealth. Because of that their healthiness decreases by a considerable amount. The
development of their brains becomes insufficient and due to that their ability to get a proper
education decreases. So taking necessary steps to develop health and education sectors in these
countries is a good way to reduce poverty. So firstly we have to develop services for pregnant
women of those countries and provide them good foods filled with proper nutrients to keep the
babies in good health. And then the kids will be in good health and their brains will be in a better
condition to get a proper education. Developing the education sectors of those countries with the
help of charity services and the governments of developed countries is also a good step to develop
education systems in those countries. When we take a look at the situation of education in a number
of African countries affected by poverty we see: language barriers; a lack of proper facilities; and
military conflicts. Increasing the number of organizations which are working to reduce poverty by
educating people of developed countries to be organized and to take actions related to this matter
is also another suggestion of mine. Encouraging people who have volunteered to provide facilities
such as pure water, foods filled with nutrients, living places to poor people and who’re conducting
charity services to develop the lives of them, by offering special rewards and admiring them in
various ways would be a good way to increase the number of voluntary workers. So I believe my
opinions and suggestions would be a good help to conclude poverty.
MY PERSONAL RATINGS

The first thing is to ensure that every child gets a full education until the age of 18.
Presently, education is not free and so in the many very large, poor families, some children miss
out because parents can't afford to send them all to school. This means that they grow up excluded
from all but the most menial and low-paid jobs. The very poor are excluded also from some basic
elements of life like banking. Philippine banks insist that you maintain a balance of 2000 Pesos in
your account, 10000 for joint accounts. Those amounts look like nothing when you convert them
into any western currency, but it's more than a poor Filipino can afford to have sitting idle. Anyone
who does get a job which pays salary by bank transfer can open a 'payroll' account which has no
requirement to maintain a minimum balance, but a huge number of the population is barred from
the modern world of banking. The Catholic church here is also incredibly dogmatic and has a
stranglehold over the hearts and minds of the people, and fights against the use of proper family
planning (even though it failed to stop the Reproductive Health bill being passed), it welcomes
families that keep pumping out children as blessings but does little if anything to help their raising
once they are born, so breaking the cycle of huge families unable to feed themselves and just
continuing to grow proves incredibly difficult .The political system here is immensely corrupt,
whilst elections here have the outward appearance of being democratic, the nation remains in the
hands of a small number of families who are in the game to serve themselves rather than the
country's whole 100+ million population. The latest president, the highly controversial Rodrigo
Duterte, promised to end corruption, and has scratched the surface of the problem, but since he has
been revealed to be in the pockets of the Marcos family, hopes are not particularly high. The
Philippines is a country with many problems, but to be perfectly honest, most Filipinos have little
will to make changes.
REFERENCE

https://youtu.be/I2ecPyPGmxU
 SOCIAL ISSUE DOCUMENTARY
(TULAY)

Submitted by: Jacinto, Shane E.

Submitted to: Sir. Pagayunan, Roel