MINDANAO (MindaNews / 19 August) – In the news: NEDA (National Economic and Development Authority) said Filipinos who spend 64 pesos a day for food are not considered poor.
If you divide 64 pesos into three meals a day, a person spends 21 pesos per meal.
NEDA came out with this data during congressional hearings on the national budget and their programs to alleviate poverty.
“Saan planeta kaya nabubuhay ang taga-NEDA?” Congresswoman France Castro of ACT Teachers partylist asks the question that is in everyone’s mind.
Castro, who is a retired mathematics teacher, schooled a NEDA official when she asked on how they did their math.
In response, that NEDA official said people can live with that budget by buying a seven-pesos pack of noodles, four pesos coffee stick, a can of sardines for 15 to 20 pesos, and two pesos for a piece of pandesal.
Actually, the question we need to ask is: Anong timeline nakatingin ang taga-NEDA? Marcos Jr. or Marcos Sr.’s Nutribun “Golden Era”?
Because of that improbable data, some think that NEDA actually stands for National Echus nga Data, Atik kaayo.
You can’t even buy a value meal at Jollibee with 21 pesos. That’s just extra rice only plus catsup!
Some also think that NEDA should be renamed DepEd, because people there don’t know their math.
In response to this issue, Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the police chief turned senator from Davao, said people living in provinces will not be bothered with that low food budget. “(S)a amin sa probinsya, kahit walang 21 pesos ay mabubuhay kami. May niyog, tanim,” he said.
Take that from a former police chief whose past expertise in his field includes a certain kind of planting in crime scenes.
Sen. Bato assumes everyone in the province has a farm, with coconut trees. He forgot he has a colleague-senator-real estate land developer who reacts every time she hears the word farm: Saan yang farm? Ang lapad, gawin nating subdivision.
The senator from Davao also has to toktok his head because minimum wages in Mindanao are among the lowest from an average of 380 pesos in BARMM, Caraga and Zampen to an average of 430 pesos in the rest of the regions.
Please have lawmakers use their coconuts to think of better solutions or something realistic to say.
Mindanao actually has experienced a decline in hunger from 12% down to 8% in the first quarter this year based on the SWS survey. But hunger incidence has increased across the regions in that same period up to 14%.
More importantly, the SWS reports 46% of Filipino families find themselves poor and 33% find themselves really, really poor.
“Poor” the record, there are plenty of people who can’t afford to have a decent meal three times a day. There are farmers who can’t earn to feed themselves and sustain their farms.
That’s why Rep. Castro’s proposals make sense. Address the prices of consumer and agricultural goods. People can’t live everyday eating noodles. Lucky Me or Unlucky Us.
That makes sense. Or that’s making use of one’s coconut.
To the tune of The Beatles’ When I’m Sixty-four
“Are you still hungry, but you have no money, it’s just sixty-four”
(Mind Da Noise is a column by jaded Mindanawon observers).