Poor Country

Several foreign lawmakers are in town to visit impoverished sites in the Philippines and check on the status of poverty. They must be kidding! It’s already evident. Study the obvious? In this province where I was born and raised, shanties were unheard of. Now, they have mushroomed on every unfenced vacant lot, mountain slopes, along riverbanks and coastlines. The last thing a lot of people want to hear from them is to keep on echoing that we have a problem with poverty. We know. We know. We know. They could have just done what the Royal Family of Monaco and a rich young Englishman quietly did for our poor. Shame on our own lawmakers who have been receiving millions of pork barrel disguised as Countryside Development Fund. The fund, it seemed, has not reached the countryside. But I still hope whatever these foreign lawmakers report (and I pray they find something new) won’t fell on deaf ears of our government leaders and the rest of the world who perceive this country of 7,107 islands (low tide) and with over 100 ethno-linguistic groups as a dumping ground of their surplus junks.