A shocking news caught my attention today as a World Bank Report quoted that 14.8 million of Filipinos live below the poverty line of US $1.00 a day.This is like what we pay for 1-2 hours of parking at shopping areas in downtown Kuala Lumpur.

Another 43 million of Filipinos live below US$2,00 a day. Total population of The Philippines is about 76 million in 2000 and is estimated to be 88 million now.

According to World Bank’s World Development Indicators 2007, just below 1 billion of world population live below US$1.oo a day and almost 2.6 billion people live below the $2.00 mark. This is almost half the population of the developing world. This is despite the fall in global poverty rate in the first 4 years of the 21st century.

A key reason for the decline in dollar-a-day poverty was China’s massive poverty reduction between 1990 and 2004 that trimmed East Asia’s extreme poverty rate to 9 percent in 2004.

Fellow Malaysians, we should consider ourselves fortunate. The Philippines were richer than us in the 1950s. After 2 decades of rule under a corrupt and dictitorial regime of Marcos, the country has gone down to the drain and has not been able to recover .

This should serve as a lesson to us. Corruption must be weeded out, otherwise we may go the way that the Phillipines has gone. Good governance, transparency, accountability are the hallmarks of good democratic governments and our government should strive to have all these qualities.

Nevertheless,  we should not be too proud of ourselves. We should also look at the other end of the spectrum. One  country which was poorer than us in the 50s and 60s , became our equal in the 80s and now has an economy 4 times our size is South Korea. They have left us far behind. Similarly, Hong Kong, Taiwan have all surpassed us, not to mention our southern neighbour.

We are good but we need to be better to ensure our future generations will not live below poverty line. The Phillipines is a glaring reminder to us not to take things for granted.