Position Paper: Hunger
Menu for the Day: Education for All People One major problem in our world today is hunger. Let us use Philippines as an example. In the latest survey of Social Weather Stations (SWS), 23. 8 % of Filipinos or estimated as 4. million Filipinos experience hunger at least once in past three months. This latest hunger rate surpassed the highest record of 23. 7 % in December 2008. (Flores, pars. 1-3) This only shows that a lot of people experiences hunger in our country right now. What could be the probable causes of this? Let us discuss each probable cause one by one using statistics. One evident cause I see for this is poverty. In another survey conducted by SWS, 51 % or estimated 10. 3 million Filipino households considered themselves poor, lower by 4 points from 55 % or 11. 1 million families in March.
Also stated in the survey, about 39 % or about 7. 9 million Filipino families rated themselves “food-poor”, lower by six points from 45% or 9. 1 million previously. (Flores, pars. 1-3) Even though we can see improvements in the rates, it is still not enough to say that we are alleviating it. Another cause I see is unemployment. In a survey by National Statistics Office (NSO), the unemployment rate dropped to 6. 9 % compared to last year’s 7. 1 %. The poll showed that Metro Manila registered the highest unemployment rate at 10. 4 percent. Among the jobless, 62. 3 percent are male and 37. are female. More than half—51. 7 percent—are between 15 to 27 years old. Among educational groups, 32. 8 percent—or almost a third—of the unemployed are high school graduates, 13. 8 are college undergraduates and 21 percent are college graduates. (Caraballo, pars. 1-4) Another cause I see is number of people who can’t acquire quality education. The Filipinos start off with 80% of them going to the elementary schools. However, the percentage decreases directly to only 48% of them going to the high schools. It even decreases down to 20% of the Filipinos, who go to the colleges and the universities.
Even though students go to the schools to study, the books they use have several errors with unreliable information, grammatical and spelling errors. (Kim and Reyes, pars. 2) These three causes are inter-connected to each other, meaning one causes the other. The incapability of most people to acquire quality education results to unemployment since these people doesn’t have enough skills to get their desired job. Also, good job opportunities have large demands that those who didn’t acquire quality education are the least opportunity in the employment.
Because of people don’t have jobs, this make them incapable in producing enough income to support their families, which is poverty. Poverty then leads to hunger for they don’t have enough money to satisfy their need for food. If the causes of hunger are inter-connected with each other, then same are the solutions. The government should first make the education here in the Philippines more accessible. If every member of the society has enough skill to get their desired job, there will be less people who are unemployed.
If every individual in the working force have jobs, they will be capable in providing the necessities of their families including food. Thus, alleviating the hunger in our country even in the world.
Works Cited:
- Caraballo, Flores, Helen. “Self-rated Poverty Down – SWS. ” The Philippine Star. The Philippine Star,2012.
- Web. 29 June 2012 <http://www5. philstar. com/Article. aspx? articleId=822076&publicationSubCategoryId=63> Flores, Helen. “SWS: 4. 8 M Families Experience Hunger. ”
- The Philippine Star. The PhilippineStar, 2012. Web. 9 May 2012
