Chyllsein Lith E.

Tan Grade XI-Haswell

Poverty is one of the serious problems of our country. We often blame the management of the
government's leaders, but are they really to blame or are we Filipinos lazy? They say, "Laziness equals
Poverty”, they are right, and so are the people who say the government is at fault.

I was thinking that the problem of this issue is the economic growth of the government is
decreasing.According to Asian Development Bank the main causes of poverty in the country are low to
moderateeconomic growth for the past 40 years which it indicates that while the country has
experiencedmoderate economic growth in recent years, poverty reduction has been slow. Inequality has
remainedhigh, which mitigates the positive impact of growth on poverty reduction.

Most of the Philippines experience massive typhoons and armed conflict. These scenarios are a real
struggle for the everyday worker who, even after a long day, still goes back home poor. Due to these
factors, many citizens end up leaving behind farm work and going to find work in manufacturing hubs in
the urban areas of the country. These jobs outside the agricultural dome have accounted for two-thirds
of the progress in reducing poverty in the Philippines.

As of 2015, poverty in the Philippines was prevalent with 22 million Filipinos living in the depths of
poverty. That equates to one-fifth of the population. Poverty presents itself in a vicious cycle affecting
mainly the uneducated population who tend to live in large family units. These family units usually have
only one head of the household who provides income for the entire family.

One of the key strategies to help bring down poverty in the Philippines is providing birth control to the
poor. In a radical move for the heavily populated Catholic country, the President made readily available
birth control to nearly 6 million women who cannot afford it. Providing birth control is a powerful tool
for families who now have full control over family planning. The hope is that by giving the women and
family units more control, they will have fewer children. This, in turn, will mean that families can provide
more responsibly. This new policy will help the government reach its goal of reducing poverty by 13% by
2022. The current Filipino population is at 104 million and continues to rise at an alarming rate of 1.7%
each year. This new law will enable families to control how many children they want. It will also hopefully
take down the population rate to 1.4% each year once the law undergoes full execution.