Starving Children, Jobless Workers: Outside Manila, Little ‘People Power’

BACOLOD, PHILIPPINES — In the new Philippines, the proud voices of “People Power” are mixed with the death rattle of starving children on the island of Negros. The scenes at overcrowded feeding centers in Bacolod are painfully reminiscent of Ethiopia, and a stark contrast to the images of Imelda Marcos’ wardrobe and other excesses of the Marcos reign.

The human tragedy in Negros cries for attention. Not only because 210,000 children are suffering from severe malnutrition and need immediate care, but because Negros raises important questions about the future of the entire rural Philippines, where 70% of the people live in abject poverty. The events and policies that have led to the crisis here signal the need for a change of direction in the Philippine economy. Also at stake are the democratic principles the new government has promised to respect and enforce.

Obviously one cannot expect sweeping changes from a government that has been in power for little more than 100 days. But the country’s newly won freedom seems far from the hearts and stomachs of the rural people who live their lives in backbreaking poverty and who long suffered abuses from Marcos’ military.

Visiting the islands of Negros, Mindoro, Palawan and Bicol, I began to understand the full meaning of dictatorship, the human impact of too much power in the hands of one man and his cronies. I began to grasp the injustice of a system which has left 69% of Filipino children underweight for their age, and 73% of the entire population of more than 55 million with below-poverty incomes.

In talking with farmers, farm workers, landowners, government officials, leaders of mass organizations and social workers, I began to see that the extreme rural poverty is not simply a result of Marcos’ infamous corruption. It has to do with the structure of the Philippines economy, a system grossly manipulated by Marcos, reinforced by U.S. economic aid and ripe for excessive corruption.

Take the example of Elena, about 40 years old and a farm worker on a sugar plantation outside Bacolod. Like hundreds of other sugar workers, Elena earns 11 pesos a day (about 55 cents) for 10 hours of strenuous work. The legal minimum daily wage for agricultural workers on plantations is 39 pesos ($1.95), but this is not enforced.

This year the collapse of the Philippines sugar industry has left Elena and thousands of other workers in an even more vulnerable position. While the production cost of a pound of sugar is 14 cents in the Philippines, the world market price is only 6 cents. Sugar workers are being laid off by the thousands, bringing the total number of unemployed able bodies on the island to 250,000. With no other source of livelihood, Elena runs the risk of losing her grandchildren to feeding centers back in Bacolod City.

A highly inequitable land ownership pattern, total dependence on an export crop subject to price fluctuations beyond the country’s control and a political-military structure that has suppressed the legitimate demands of workers for improved conditions have created this crisis. The rest of the Philippines is in danger of falling into similar crises if the prevailing cycle of poverty is not broken.

The Philippines’ new finance minister, Jaime Ongpin, has called for dramatic increases in agricultural production. But who will benefit? At one time, between 1977 and 1982, through the introduction of “Green Revolution” technologies, the Philippines even exported rice. However, the average yearly grain consumption per Filipino actually decreased between 1972 and 1982. The high cost of Green Revolution seeds and fertilizers have placed rice beyond the reach of many of the farmers who produce it. And landlessness remains a source of economic insecurity among peasants.

Landless tenants often mortgage up to 60% of their total harvest toward rent. In addition, farmers have to pay increasingly high prices for irrigation, rental of farm machinery and imported agricultural inputs. The cost of production far exceeds the price farmers receive for their products. In Mindoro’s Magsaysay region, farmers still have to pay for water even though the pipes from a Marcos-delivered irrigation scheme provide no water during the dry season. To make matters worse, the pricing system instituted under Marcos established such unattainable quality standards that farmers are forced to sell their rice cheaply to middlemen, who then resell it on the market for large profits. This system of institutionalized robbery has thrown peasants into a vicious cycle of bankruptcy and debt.

Any move toward increased production must take these realities into account. The Philippines’ experience under Marcos has demonstrated that without mechanism for equitable distribution of agricultural resources and revenues, increased production does not necessarily lead to increased prosperity for the majority. Marcos’ agricultural policies resulted in profits for the large landowners who could afford the high price of imports, and for those corporations that manufacture and export seeds, fertilizers and farm machinery to the Philippines. The country’s rural population is eagerly waiting to see whose interest the Aquino government will choose to represent.

Addressing the root cause of poverty is not merely an act of justice; it is an economic necessity for a country with a $2.2-billion balance-of-payment deficit and a back-breaking $26-billion foreign debt. The new Philippines does not have much room for error. Aquino, who has enough insight to point to extreme poverty as the main source of tension and violence in the countryside, now must give peasants more than just the perception of a difference.