(Google image)
ANGELES CITY — A labor group said yesterday that the Magna Carta of the Poor, signed recently by Pres. Duterte “will fail miserably for failing to address the roots of poverty.”
The Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP), in a statement, said Republic Act 11291 or the Magna Carta of the Poor “will not even make a dent to address the ever-growing number of families falling below poverty levels.”
“State policies continue to favor the economic elite,” the group said, adding that “RA 11291 is a mere codification of what is already supposedly being implemented or should be by agencies.”
BMP chair Leody de Guzman noted that the new law defines the poor as “persons whose income falls below the poverty threshold as defined by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), and those who cannot afford their minimum basic needs of food, health, education, and housing.”
“Despite its overarching scope, RA 11291 is a classic case of doublespeak. Its ambiguity only highlights its deafening silence on the factors that contributed to poverty,” he said.
He cited “the continued practice of contractualization and circumvention of constitutionally guaranteed labor rights and the regionalization and municipalization of wages in industrial hubs as the obstacles to achieving the law’s objective.”
“The recently enacted laws such as Tax reform law and the Rice import tariffication law will only exacerbate the miserable conditions of those living below poverty levels,” he also said.
He also pointed out that the “TRAIN Law has been discovered to have contributed to inflation by the state think-tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies and the Rice import tariffication law deprived Filipino farmers 95 billion pesos in income as per the Philippine Chamber of Agriculture and Food Inc.”
“Not unless this administration veer away from the path of neo-liberal globalization and the socially generated value is equitably distributed, the man-made crisis of privation will worsen beyond Duterte’s six-year term,” he said.
