It is pure fantasy for Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar to boast that President Rodrigo Duterte has accomplished his campaign promises, except for the pending shift to federalism.
It is utter miscommunication and disconnect for Andanar to assert that that the problems on poverty, the drug menace, corruption and peace and order have been solved.
Andanar failed to disclose any data that the annual nationwide incidence of poverty of 21.6% in 2015 has been reduced to a tolerable level during the first year and a half of the Duterte administration.
In Lanao del Sur alone, from 44% in 2006, 74.3% of residents lived below the poverty threshold in 2015 as reported by the Family Income Expenditure Survey (FIES).
The poverty incidence in Lanao del Sur has increased from 44.2% in 2006, 59.4% in 2009, 74.4% in 2012 and to 74.3% in 2015, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). The Marawi armed conflict, which devastated Marawi City and displaced hundreds of thousands of residents, exacerbated and continues to aggravate the poverty situation.
Moreover, the latest SWS survey on self-rated poverty document that the proportion of Filipino families who consider themselves poor rose in the 3rd quarter of 2017 and also showed rising poverty in Metro Manila and areas of Luzon outside the capital.
SWS found the ranks of self-rated poor families rising by 3.0% in the July to September 2017 period to 47% from the preceding quarter’s 44%.
Unemployment rate as of 2017 is 5.7% or equivalent to 2.4 million unemployed Filipinos, not considering a 16.1% underemployment rate, which translates to 6.5 million underemployed workers. According to the PSA, an underemployed person is one who wants to have additional hours of work in his present job or an additional job, or a new job with longer working hours.
No less than President Duterte has requested several times that he should be given more time to address the drug menace, the last of which was on December 5, 2017 when he asked for about one more year. This indicates that the problem persists even as extrajudicial killings related to the deadly drug campaign continue unabated.
The problem on peace and order continues to besiege the Duterte administration with the President requesting a yearlong extension of martial law in Mindanao, which is an admission of the continuing problem of terrorist threats.
Serious corruption has not been eliminated with only executives with “excessive foreign travels” being axed, but high profile graft cases, except vendetta prosecution, remain in perpetual investigations.
Despite the President’s campaign rhetoric to solve the endemic traffic mess, the problem has worsened in Metro Manila, Metro Cebu and Metro Davao, among other places.
The commitment of the President to forge a peace settlement with leftist groups and with the Muslim separatist forces has faltered and appears to have been abandoned.
EDCEL C. LAGMAN