EDITORIAL - Of Mariannet and poverty
The nation was shocked when a 12-year-old girl in
In this seemingly godforsaken country, however, committing suicide due to dire poverty has become common nowadays. In fact, stories of those who shot or hanged themselves for failing to land a job to feed their families no longer compete for the editors’ attention for page 1.
But the story of the 12-year-old girl who had decided to claim her own life for something beyond the boundary of her responsibility is an exception. For who would have thought that a young girl with a carefree mind would ever think to commit suicide over her family’s misfortunes?
Before her death, Mariannet wrote in her diary that she wanted a regular job for her parents in order for her to finish elementary, aside from longing for new shoes, bag and a bicycle. Her father suspected that she committed suicide because of their miserable situation.
She wrote that she was absent from school for over a month and that they were not able to go to church since they did not have money for transport. The night before killing herself, Mariannet asked her father for P100 for a school project, but he did not have any money.
It’s ironic that Mariannet’s suicide grabbed the national attention on the same day President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo boasted before the business community that the fruits of economic reforms she implemented have begun trickling down to the lowest sector of society.
The truth is, extreme poverty continues to sweep throughout the country with majority of the masses saying their situation even becomes more depressing under the present administration. For political purposes, it’s definitely easy for the government to tally the figures of its vaunted financial gains. But it dismally failed to convert them into a truly economic achievement that will save the masses from the fangs of poverty.
Thus, Mariannet’s suicide only tells us about the seriousness of poverty that scrapes the face of the nation.
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