Filipinos featured eating food from garbage are a small group unique in metro manila where many restaurants specialise in chicken & throw awaY the left overs. The scavenged chicken parts are washed/ cleaned & cook again with condiments to taste good. This happens in blighted/squatters communities — low income with only one income earmer in the informal or services sectors but with families to feed.
Same with those living in cemeteries that is unique to few groups in MetroManila. The stream of rural urban migration is towards few metro areas esp metro manila, the seat of economic, political, institutional etc power & resources — aptly called imperial manila. Even as squatting had been decriminalized almost 4 decades agi, with lack of low income housing/ social welfare services — a number of public cemeteries have been shelter to otherwise homeless poor Filipinos.
This is attributed to the folliwing:
- >1% of the 115M population constitute the political & economic elites that control & monopolize political (the family dynasties that govern in a patronage system) & economic power (80% of the country’s wealth & resources)
- 70% are poor or low income
- an education system that does not match the knowledge & skills requirements for the country’s growth developmrnt
- Neglect of the agriculture & manufacturing/industries sectors that would spur rural development, create jobs & good paying jobs & eco policies that instead opt to pursue import- dependent economy
- mindset of dependency & entitlements instilled by the dominant faith (charity/share with the needy), socialist NGOs’ socio-eco equality, & government’s pittance social welfare programs in a political patronage system
- Citizens regard democratic governance as rights without obligations (that ensure good accountable governance) & rather sell their votes, or elect public officials based on name- recall (political family dynasties, popular movie/ sports personalities etc) not on political reforms/ agenda.
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