PPP Is Really Pinoy Poverty Porn

So, after being somewhat quiet on the blogosphere for a couple of weeks or months, I decided a few moments ago that this would be a good day to fire off a blog post about a long ongoing conversation I have with my friend and partner JP Fenix.

In between talk about ongoing projects and other stuff that has been “in the pipeline” for months, we’d find ourselves picking up on threads of a conversation about what we think is that “one thing” that most Filipinos fail to recognize as their country’s real and only attraction.

The conversation actually started months ago after JP knocked off a couple of glasses from the table in Cibo Greenbelt 5 and sent it crashing across the floor.  The empty cocktail and tumbler glasses were the unsuspecting victims of a flurry of  gesticulations that erupted form JP  as he  emphasized an important point in a tangle of important points about a story he had chased down in Mindanao another entire lifetime ago.

As the waiters fussed over the sparkling shards of broken glass and glistening puddles of the liquor we imbibed that afternoon with hand brooms and mops, JP cut the curiously tense silence that fell and hung over Cibo right after the racket of breaking glass and clattering of cutlery, and he asked, “So, what do you really think… is our country’s unique selling proposition?”

I resisted the urge to rattle off stuff from a default list of nice stuff that I think the country is well known for because I knew that none of them are actually so superlatively unique that it cannot be claimed for another country.  So, I just nodded to JP and asked, “What is the country’s unique selling proposition?”

Photo Credit: http://webpages.scu.edu/ftp/aatienza/Philippinepoverty.html

“Poverty,” JP said as he beckoned a waiter and held up his empty can of Coke Zero, “Or to be exact, poverty porn.  If it isn’t our unique selling proposition now, then it will be in a couple more years — if things don’t change substantially.  If we aren’t already the only poor country left in South East Asia, we will be.”

Of course I cocked an eyebrow, thinking it was another one of his wisecracks, but considering that the country’s economic growth is an illusion and most of our South East Asian neighbors have already or will over take the country in less than five years.

In GRP Shorts, webmaster BenignO writes:

 

The phenomenon is based on so-called “hot money” being pumped in to fuel the real estate boom, low-end BPO service jobs, and retail. None of these sectors produce long term sustainable growth. Worse, the money could be pulled out by investors and re-invested in other markets outside the country at any time. The Philippines still lacks the required elements for real growth such as a robust manufacturing sector. WE DO NOT PRODUCE ANYTHING OF REAL VALUE. Instead, the local economy is propped up by consumerism, funded by OFW remittances. It is precisely because of this that the Philippines remains unattractive to foreign investment. Much of the FDI money avoids Manila and finds its way to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and now Myanmar.

Consider article published in Philippine Star last year, a newspaper largely regarded as the Second Aquino administration’s mouth piece:

 

A report issued by the Integration Monitoring Office of the ASEAN Secretariat also showed that the Philippines has the lowest GDP per capita among the six oldest ASEAN members, including Brunei. Each Filipino accounts for only $2,300 a year, which is less than a quarter of the world average of $10,000.

 

The OECD has projected that in the next five years or until 2017, the Philippines’ real GDP growth will be 5.5 percent yearly, which would be at par with the figure for the entire ASEAN.

 

However, the four less developed members are expected to surpass this level with Vietnam growing by 5.6 percent; Myanmar, 6. 3 percent; Cambodia, 6.9 percent and Laos, 7.4 percent.

Because it is doubtful that the Aquino Administration can really do anything that will change things at this point, just a little over two years away from the 2016 elections, we’re pretty much doomed to be still one of the poorest countries if not THE POOREST in South East Asia by the time our neighbors become more established as new economic giants in five years or less.

Give it another decade or so, and perhaps, the Philippines will be the only country in South East Asia where people can go to in order to indulge in POVERTY PORN.

 

Poverty porn, also known as development porn or famine porn, has been defined as ‘any type of media, be it written, photographed or filmed, which exploits the poor’s condition in order to generate the necessary sympathy for selling newspapers or increasing charitable donations or support for a given cause.”

 

It is a term also used to explain when media is created not in order to generate sympathy, but to cause anger or outrage.

Strange as it may seem, while some people get off on… well… sexy stuff, there are people who get off on seeing the effects of extreme poverty.  While certainly there are people who sincerely seek out the poor to help them, there are people whose main interest is really to exploit the poor and their condition through various expositions in order to encourage the flow of fund contributions to their organization or to build up some kind of reputation as a journalist or authority.

The great thing about Philippine poverty is that it’s pretty accessible in ways that poverty in other countries aren’t.

First, perhaps, is that one’s encounter with poverty in the Philippines starts just after departing from NAIA2 — the country’s main international airport.  Just a few meters out of the airport and foreigners seeking to indulge in poverty porn immediately get face to face with beggars and squeegee boys.  A little further on, their vehicle can get accosted by MMDA or city traffic aides for some imaginary traffic violation like swerving.  Yet further on, at their hotel or just outside of it, street urchins and prostitutes will definitely flock around them.

And if they want to really, really get a full dose of poverty in the extreme, all they have to do is walk a couple of meters to the nearest squatters area or city dump site.

As a unique selling proposition, the Philippine won’t even have to fund a global branding campaign, all that needs to happen is for another massive natural calamity like Super Typhoon Haiyan to hit the country and voila!

The Philippines suddenly looms large on the world stage with the help of “Disaster Journalists” like Anderson Cooper; tens of millions of dollars in relief aid start getting pledged and sent over; Da Pinoys go wacko over telling the world about Bayanihan and DA PILIPINO SPIRIT; Philippine politicians also get to do their shtick of appearing to be helping their constituents with relief goods emblazoned with their names; and I guess you know the rest.

What Filipino politicians are not admitting is that poverty has been the country’s main selling point to the world and the main justification for all of its governance programs ever since the First Aquino administration came to power.

Source: http://paulfarol.com/2014/03/11/ppp-is-really-pinoy-poverty-porn/?relatedposts_exclude=483