Jobs, food still what's pressing

It may be Opposition leader Edcel Lagman’s duty to foul President Noynoy Aquino, but his latest act seemed more like an assist-pass. In the wake of Aquino’s continuing high poll ratings, Lagman suggested he use his huge popularity to improve the people’s lot. Hopefully Aquino will get that ball and shoot it.

His 72-percent approval and 74-percent trust ratings, in Pulse Asia’s November 2011 survey, can only be elating for Aquino. It comes in the midst of political combat, when in fulfillment of campaign promise he is striving to jail plunderers and election cheats. Aquino is perceived to have done well in fighting corruption and criminality, and enforcing the law equally.

The approval-trust scores come right after another uplifting study. Business optimism, the Bangko Sentral reports, is up 38.7 percent for the second straight quarter. Monetary authorities attribute the rise to “sound macroeconomic fundamentals,” brisker spending and overseas workers’ remittances, and typhoon-free harvests during Christmas. Also, more to Aquino’s credit, the start of infrastructure works, new investments, and trade expansion.

Aquino winning streak should not lull him into complacency. The crucial issue is still the people’s basic wellbeing. He must not forget that only last September a huge number of Filipinos complained of gloomy economic straits. Politics and macroeconomics do not ease deprivation.

To recall, in that Social Weather Station poll, 52 percent, or 10.4 million households, called themselves poor. Only three months before in June, the self-rated poverty was 49 percent, or 9.8 million families.

Equally alarming, 41 percent, or 8.2 million households, said they were hungry. Three months before the food poverty was at 36 percent, or 7.2 million families.

Self-rated poverty was worst in Luzon (excluding Metro Manila) — a 15-point rise to 53 percent in September, from 38 percent in June. So was hunger in Luzon — a surge to 45 percent, from 28 percent. And this was before typhoons and floods devastated Cagayan and Central Plains.

In short, the political and business goodwill comes amid penury. The same Pulse Asia poll of November, in which Aquino scored high approval and trust, rated him so-so in economic concerns. More Filipinos agreed that he had created jobs and improved workers’ pay. But less conceded that he had curbed poverty and inflation.

The same Bangko Sentral report on business buoyancy in October also predicted slowdown starting January 2012. Executives fear the residual effects of the Luzon floods, and the natural disasters in Japan and Thailand. Also dampening them are slower trade due to the US and European financial crises, and Middle East tensions.

By the first quarter of 2012, Aquino hopefully would be through with his political fights to reckon with jobs and food.

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When US servicemen quit eight military bases in the Philippines in 1991 more than 50,000 Amerasian children were deserted. Mostly infants and toddlers then, the left-behinds are now young adults. A sorry lot they are. Many suffer severe depression, says the United Philippine Amerasians. Who wouldn’t, with fathers disowning, mothers having neglected, and society discriminating against them? Of Anglo or African progeny, skin color and hair texture quickly stigmatize them as “GI babies.” Researched by New York social worker Dr. Pete Kutschera, most live in slums, undereducated so under- or unemployed. Some of the females work like their moms as bargirls or housemaids; the males, steeped in petty crimes, drug peddling and abuse.

Kutschera is putting up a Philippine Amerasian Research Center, to study deeper the “Pan-Amerasian diaspora.” Best site for it is Angeles City, Pampanga, where 8,000 Filipino Amerasians dwell. The university town lies beside Clark Field, once the US Air Force’s largest overseas base. This week social development Prof. Jose Maria G. Pelayo III got the Systems Plus College Foundation to host the first facility of its kind.

The Center can take off from Kutschera’s doctoral dissertation for further research. Published recently, it is about “Stigma, Psychosocial Risk, and Core Mental Health Symptomatology among Amerasians.” Of pressing need is a study on suicide among the abandoned generation. Who knows, the Center could foster a sub-office for job placements or parent-offspring unifications. Better still, it could set into motion what John A. Shade, book author of America’s Forgotten Children, wrote as far back as 1980. Said he, if the American public gets to learn about the Amerasians’ plight, it surely will demand every form of restitution for them. (Read more in http://amerasianinstitute.org)

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Cancer Warriors Foundation Inc. also has indigent cancer-stricken wards in Dumaguete City. And their Christmas wish list — for simple clothes and toys — has just arrived. Six of the 12 pray for something transformative. See list:

Yappy Cabahug, 7, continued medical support; Jazer Catipay, 9, transformer robot; John Merto, 4, continued medical support, toys; Stephen Salatan, 7, toy gun; James Saycon, 5, bike, shoes, basketball; Daniel Tenador, 6, to be healed; blessings for those who help; Cyler Tubat, 1, toys; Beneath Capitan, 8, doll with remote; Mia Dacapio, 6, toys, dolls;

Joan Dayapdapan, 16, to go to college next school year; Krizel Enrera, 5, medical support, esp. Minirin; and May Macabinquil, 16, medical support.

E-mail CWEI founder James Auste, [email protected], or visit website www.cancerwarriorsfoundation.org for bank accounts and other donation details.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

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