When he was younger, "Lito", a homeless child, slept naked on hard pavements, with only a small piece of biscuit to ease the rumblings of his hunger.
"Lito" has been living on the streets since he was born. He is now seven years old, but not much has changed. The street is still his home, the pavement still his bed. On good nights, Lito sleeps on carton boxes or inside parked jeepneys. His grandmother Yolly Bagtas is his sole provider.
Bagtas earns a meager living hailing cabs for people and helping drivers park their cars--hardly enough to support herself and her grandkids.
For Bagtas and her family, life is hard. Not only do they have no roof over their heads. They also often have no food to eat. They are among the thousands of homeless people struggling to survive in the streets of the Philippines.
According to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, an astounding 1,200,000 Filipino children just like "Lito" are growing up on the streets, and face higher risks of drug addiction and prostitution, among others--a staggering 40,000 street kids are in Metro Manila.
"Kapag swerte, nakakabili ako ng kanin at kaunting hotdogs. Kapag mahina ang kita, “Kanin-baw” ang aming pagkain. (When we’re lucky, I get to buy rice and a few pieces of hotdogs. But when earnings are small, we get by with Kanin-baw)," Bagtas said in a previous interview with the writer. Kanin-baw, she explained, is a small bowl of rice flavored with a bit of soup.
"Minsan, kapag nakikita ko ang anak ko, lalo na ang mga apo ko, naiiyak ako. Madalas ko silang panoorin kapag natutulog sila. Naiiyak akong panoorin silang nakatira sa kalsada. (I sometimes cry when I watch my child, especially my grandchildren. I often watch them sleep and I cry seeing them living on the streets)," Bagtas also shared.
According to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, an astounding 1,200,000 Filipino children just like "Lito" are growing up on the streets, and face higher risks of drug addiction and prostitution, among others--a staggering 40,000 street kids are in Metro Manila.
Metro Manila, which has the highest rate of homelessness worldwide, has an estimated 3.1 million homeless people.
Click next to learn more about poverty in the Philippines and what the government plans to do about it
Poverty in the Philippines
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, poverty incidence among Filipinos in the first semester of 2015 was estimated at 26.3 percent.
Subsistence incidence among Filipinos, or the proportion of Filipinos whose incomes fall below the food threshold, was estimated at 12.1 percent in the same period.
Also according to PSA, poverty among families was estimated at 21.1 percent during the first semester of 2015, while the subsistence incidence among Filipino families, or the proportion of Filipino families in extreme poverty, was estimated at 9.2 percent during the same period.
In the first semester of 2015, on the average, incomes of poor families were short by 29.0 percent of the poverty threshold, translating to an additional PhP 2,649 for a family of five to rise above the poverty line.
A ray of hope
Vice President Leni Robredo, according to an article by Nikko Dizon on the Inquirer, revealed that the government has a backlog of 1.4 million houses--a problem they hope to address within the next 6 years.
Below are the details from Dizon's article:
Robredo, who has been involved in poverty-alleviation related issues in the past, currently heads the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), spoke at the recently concluded Business World Economic Forum.
"We want to address the 1.4-million housing backlog within our term. We will disrupt and innovate. We will enjoin the private sector to be our partners in providing not just houses, but decent and affordable communities where our people will find jobs, where their children can safely go to school, attend church, run around and play safely,” Robredo said.
Robredo cited a project by Phinma Properties, in partnership with the Quezon City local government, Pag-ibig Fund and NGOs. Under the project, informal settlers were given decent homes for only a monthly fee of PhP 2,000. She also appealed to the private sector to help government think of more ways to alleviate poverty in the country.
Read: 5 Parenting Lessons from Leni Robredo
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