NAPC rallies more action vs poverty

FILE: NAPC will launch its Kilos SAMBAYANAN (Kilos para sa Sampung Batayang Pangangailangan) campaign in Mindanao and the Visayas after doing so in Manila this year to further promote mass movement against poverty, said the agency’s technical officer Joanna Lerio. (PNA photo by Avito C. Dalan)verty

MANILA — The National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) continues the mobilization of all sectors in helping address poverty nationwide.

NAPC will launch its Kilos SAMBAYANAN (Kilos para sa Sampung Batayang Pangangailangan) campaign in Mindanao and the Visayas after doing so in Manila this year to further promote mass movement against poverty, said the agency’s technical officer Joanna Lerio.

“We’re campaigning for all sectors’ convergence on addressing poverty issues and concerns,” she said.

She said NAPC will hold the Mindanao launch from Oct. 25 to 27 this year in Davao.

NAPC will launch Kilos SAMBAYANAN in the Visayas afterwards, she added.

“Our campaign includes promoting all sectors’ unity and commitment in meeting the 10 basic needs of people, particularly the poor,” she said.

According to NAPC, those needs are food and land reform, water, shelter, work, education, health, social protection, healthy environment, peace, and participation.

“It is the right of all Filipinos not to be hungry and it is the right of every child not to grow homeless,” NAPC cited its Lead Convenor Sec. Liza Maza as saying during a Kilos SAMBAYANAN forum in Cainta this month.

Maza then also cited need for public and private sectors’ active engagement in addressing poverty, said NAPC.

NAPC came up with Kilos SAMBAYANAN after holding multi-stakeholder consultations during the National Anti-Poverty Summit last year, Lerio said.

She noted NAPC decided pursuing Kilos SAMBAYANAN as extreme poverty still persists in the Philippines despite the country’s economic growth.

Citing Philippine Statistics Authority data, NAPC said 8.23 million Filipinos are ‘subsistence poor’ with income insufficient to meet even their basic food needs.

Such people are among the 21.93 million poor Filipinos in 2015, noted NAPC.

“Consequently, many Filipinos are deprived of basic needs that they should be enjoying as a matter of right – Philippine poverty is rooted in underdevelopment, or backward state of agriculture and industry in the country, and in inequality or concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few at the expense of many,” NAPC said.

NAPC and Cabinet cluster on human development and poverty reduction (HDPR) is set to spearhead in Metro Manila this Friday (Oct. 20) another Kilos SAMBAYANAN forum, Lerio said.

“That forum will focus on shelter, food, and land which are among the 10 basic needs NAPC aims helping meet to address poverty,” she noted.

She said government agencies concerned would disseminate, during the forum, information on respective services which the public could avail of.

EO 24 series of 2017 designated Department of Social Welfare and Development as head of HDPR and ordered this group to work on improving Filipinos’ quality of life.

The forum on Friday is among the activities for this year’s National Week for Overcoming Extreme Poverty (NWOEP), said Lerio.

NAPC will organize more Kilos SAMBAYANAN fora to further seek ways of addressing poverty, she noted.Proclamation 717 series of 2004 declared the period from October 17 to 23 as NWOEP.

The proclamation tasked NAPC with leading, coordinating, monitoring and evaluating – in coordination with key poverty reduction partners and stakeholders – nationwide yearly observance of NWOEP.

‘Answering the Call of October 17 to End Poverty: A Path Towards Peaceful and Inclusive Societies’ is this year’s NWOEP theme.In December 1992, UN General Assembly passed resolution 47/196 which declared Oct. 17 as International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

Oct. 17 is the day in 1987 when human rights defenders and citizens from all walks of life gathered at Plaza of Human Rights and Liberties in Paris, France to pay tribute to victims of hunger, violence, and ignorance.Since then, people of different backgrounds gathered each year on Oct. 17 to renew their commitment in helping address poverty and to show solidarity with the poor. (PNA)