Help Mary

Last year's poverty incidence in Davao City rated at 14.94% according to statistics. If you are in Davao, you will not see this data on the streets. You could only see busy people, rushing to their offices, schools, or businesses. But if you visit areas like Baranggay 31-D, you'll see a clearer picture of this data.

I saw this girl taking care of her brother while waiting for their father to come home. Their house made of light material, walls are made of nipa and bamboo, other parts were covered with trash bed foams.

Inside, few kitchen utensils, clothes and a mosquito net. I asked Mary (not her real name) how many are they living here. She said las week there were ten of them, but today, his two brothers left for Cotabato to find a living. Their youngest is almost one year old. Her father is a scavenger, her mother wash clothes for some cash. Sometimes they eat three times a day, sometimes twice, depending on the day's gain of her parents.

She was a friendly girl, although she tried to be happy, i can see in her eyes her pains. She should be at school to study but her parents cannot afford.

I was reading some articles at the net when i came across this article:

The big five factors of poverty (as a social problem) include: ignorance, disease, apathy, dishonesty and dependency.

These, in turn, contribute to secondary factors such as lack of markets, poor infrastructure, poor leadership, bad governance, under-employment, lack of skills, lack of capital, and others.

The solution to the social problem of poverty is the social solution of removing the factors of poverty.

Our present government tried to address this factors but the evidence stresses the efforts is still not enough. Maybe we should look at other factors like corruption in the government. Funds to address these factors go to pockets of politicians for their own needs. The problem will remain unless we do something about it.

Next year, we will again cast our votes, will you choose those who make Mary's life more miserable?