By Uriel Quilinguing
JUST lately, Mediakonek found an explanation why, for so long a time, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology’s daily budget for food, for every person deprived of poverty, has been pegged at P70.
How the amount could be apportioned for three meals in a day—at current prices of food—might as well be likened to how five loaves (of bread) and two fishes could miraculously feed about 5,000 people as Jesus Christ did.
Last week, when the Philippine Statistics Authority boasted of the national government’s success in reducing the poverty incidence, some sectors questioned how the poverty threshold was determined.
During the first semester of 2018, the National Economic and Development Authority came up with a calculation that P10,481 is needed every month for a family of five to meet both basic food and non-food needs.
Using this official estimate, every member of the family would get a P2,096 allocation in a month or P69.87 in a day which can be rounded off to P70. So here’s the possible source of BJMP’s daily budget for food. It’s even worse if the estimated monthly amount for food, which is only P7,337 would be used as a working figure since it translates only to P48.91 in a day.
With this official poverty limit, the PSA estimated that during the first semester of 2018, there were about 26 million Filipinos—at that time until today – who were living below the poverty line.
So, other than the physical limits and being with one’s family members which every inmate is deprived of, the food of the 26 million Filipinos is no different from those behind bars, either serving sentences or while waiting cases filed against them are to be heard and decided.
This is how those at the helm view the poor; they’re treated like inmates in jails.
Instead of the poverty threshold, one may even call it “prisoners threshold” since the amount that a family of five needs to meet their basic food needs and some non-essentials are basically the same.
Perhaps, one of the parlor games during Christmas gatherings should be called “poverty challenge,” which is similar to the traditional “Maria Went to Town.” Aside from a basket, every participant would be given P70 and he or she would use the amount to buy food items for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Participants for the “poverty challenge” game should representatives from the Department of Agriculture, Department of Trade and Industry, Neda, PSA, and, of course, the BJMP. And the likely runaway winner would be the BJMP since they, for so many years, have proven they can live with that P70 per day budget for food.
(Uriel C. Quilinguing is a former president of the Cagayan de Oro Press Club who, for more than three decades, was editor in chief of Cagayan de Oro-based newspapers, including this paper. For reactions, email them to uriel.quilinguing@yahoo.com.)
