BLURB: The cash doleouts are not intended to solve the problem of poverty. They are meant to buy Noynoy peace. They are meant to buy him time until he bows out of office.
Dr. Celia Reyes of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies has concluded that Noynoy Aquino's centerpiece program for the poor -- giving them cash doleouts -- will never solve the poverty problem in the country.
But of course it won't. What Dr. Reyes said merely confirms what most people, including those without any degrees, have determined for themselves right at the outset. Even Noynoy himself knows this. But he keeps at it for an entirely different reason.
Noynoy does not really care whether the cash doleouts succeed in hauling the poor out of their poverty. In fact he does not care for the poor at all. He only goes through the motions of caring -- as in his family's Hacienda Luisita -- when the price of doing nothing is his head.
Noynoy's cash doleouts to the poor have never been intended to solve the problem of poverty. What they were truly meant for was to forestall and avoid any restiveness among the poor arising from their unmitigated poverty.
Noynoy, in case people have forgotten, is the son of former president Cory, whose presidency was marked by great turmoil and social unrest brought on by a rebellious military and angry and hungry suffering masses. He knows that next to his mother, he can fall more easily and quickly.
With absolutely no political and economic prowess to steer the country through the usual pitfalls of leadership, having ascended the presidency only through the expediency of his mother's death, Noynoy was headed for real trouble when some "bright boy" on his team came to his rescue with the crazy idea of cash doleouts.
There is a gem of a saying out there that goes: "Give me a fish, and I eat for a day. Teach me to fish, and I eat for a lifetime." The value of this lesson has withstood the test of time. In all likelihood, it will remain unassailed for all eternity.
Of course, Noynoy can always argue that he is not trying to contradict the saying. The irony is that he can be telling the truth. The lesson put forth by the saying has nothing to do with the cash doleout of Noynoy. He is not attempting to solve any social problem with the dole. He is just looking out for himself.
Noynoy is deathly afraid of being deposed. In one of the military mutinies against his mother, Noynoy reportedly got injured. He does not want to face such a harrowing experience again. But the military is sick to the core of misadventures. They are now making hay as political adventurers.
That leaves the poor as Noynoy's only remaining potential threat. So, if the poor are poor because they have no money, why not indeed give them money. That should effectively solve the problem, which as I said is not poverty but the restiveness of an angry and hungry poor, who could rise in their misery and despondence.
The cash doleouts are not intended to solve the problem of poverty for the simple reason that they can never solve the problem. They are meant to buy Noynoy peace. They are meant to buy him time until he bows out of office.
Why the hell do you think Noynoy has programmed the cash doleouts to increase year after year until the last year of his term? Because you cannot buy time and peace if the price you pay gets naturally diminished by the years.
A cash doleout of, say, P5,000 in 2010 will not mean much in 2013, and certainly mean nothing by 2016. Noynoy needed to make periodic adjustments if he is to make the cash doleouts remain practical and effective. This is the only reason for the doleouts and why they have to be increased annually.
This simple and novel way of addressing poverty can succeed only in preventing Noynoy from getting deposed by the poor masses. What most people don't realize is that while the cash doleouts can save the hide of Noynoy, they can put in grave peril his successors, who may opt for better use of taxpayers' money.