TMA 1: Societal

Problems
DEVC202

Crisostomo M. Gaerlan
28 November 2015

DEVC202
TMA 1: SOCIETAL PROBLEMS
CONTENTS OF THE SCRAPBOOK OF CRISOSTOMO M. GAERLAN AS OF
28 NOV 2015
PAGE
ITEM
DESCRIPTION
DATE
NO.
3
NEWS FROM
Corruption allegations against
26 AUG
WEBSITE
VP Jejomar Binay presented by
2015
Violeta Lazo of Makati Gen Svcs
4
IMAGE
Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile
8 SEP 2015
4
ARTICLE
Anti-Corruption Lessons from
8 SEP 2015
the PH
5
IMAGE
Former Laguna Gov. ER Ejercito
2015 file
photo
5
WEBSITE
PRES. AQUINO GETS MIXED
15 NOV
ARTICLE
REVIEWS ON ANTI-CORRUPTION
2015
6
IMAGE
PDAF SCAM NAPOLES AND
FILE PHOTO
ALLEGED INVOLVED
POLITICIANS
7
WEBSITE
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE
3 JUNE
ARTICLE
CONFLICT IN MINDANAO
2014
9
NEWS
MORO-ILONGGO LAND DISPUTE
14 NOV
2015
10
ANALYSIS
CONFLICT IN SOUTHERN
27 SEP
PHILIPPINES FAR FROM OVER
2013
11
NEWS
SMALL MINERS WONT STOP
21
USING MERCURY
DECEMBER
2013
15
IMAGE
SMALL SCALE MINER WITH
2012
MERCURY/GOLD BASIN
16
OPINION
LGBT & ANTI-DISCRIMINATION
16
LAW IN DAVAO CITY &
OCTOBER
PROPOSED NATIONAL LAW
2014
17
IMAGE
REP. KAKA BAG-AO, WOMEN
2014
AND FARMERS ADVOCATE
18
STUDY
PINOYS LACK OF HEIGHT DUE
9 MARCH
TO MALNUTRITION
2015
19
INFOGRAPHI
NUTRITION SURVEY
2011
C
20
STUDY
PH STRUGGLES WITH
1 SEP 2015
UNEMPLOYMENT
21
IMAGE
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
2014
COMPARISON, 2013:2014
22
ANALYSIS
STATISTICS ON DRUG ABUSE
2014

Politics & Corruption

Lazo showed her initial findings

on janitorial, IT (information
technology) and security
services contracted by the
Makati City Hall during Binay's
term as mayor.

She said the city government

spent more than P5 billion in 10
years for these service
contracts.
"For janitorial services, P2.3
billion was spent from 2005 t0
2014. Omni got P1.33 billion,

Corporate Solution is P570

million," Lazo said.

to believe that the city hall

needed 600 security guards.

Lazo said her office found red

flags: First, the same companies
kept winning service contracts
in the past 10 years. Second,
these companies are owned by
the same people. Third, Omni
Security Investigation and
General Services, Inc. always
wins the security contracts.

Meanwhile, a new resource

person refuted the allegation
that there were ghost senior
citizens in Makati's Blu Card
Program.
Ryan Barcelo, former officer-incharge of the Makati Social
Welfare Department said all
senior citizens in the were alive.
But Arthur Cruto, head of the
Makati Action Center insisted,
about 41% of senior citizens in
the program were missing in the
seven barangays surveyed.
They're not in the voters' list of
the Commission on Elections,
either.

She said her department also

noticed that Omni Security
already knew that it would bag a
contract a month before an
announcement was made.
Lawyer Renato Bondal, a former
Makati barangay chairman, went
as far as to call these companies
"the Binay Syndicate".

The Senate probe on corruption

allegations was set to continue
even as some resource
persons defied orders to attend
the hearing, including the Chong
family.

Bondal included the IT company

Codeworks and some of the
incorporators, including
Marguerite Lichnock who is
also the chairman of OMNI
Security. She's also the wife of
Gerry Limlingan, the vice
president's alleged bagman.
Meanwhile, Engineer Mario
Hechanova claimed that then
Mayor Binay received an
estimated P1.26 billion from
janitorial and security contracts.
Hechanova said that for a
decade, only two security firms
vied for contracts Omni and
Vican. And it was always Omni
who bagged the deals.

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia A longruling leader with massive

For his part, Sen. Antonio

Trillanes IV said he found it hard
4

corruption scandals and human

rights violations manages to
evade justice. It is a storyline
familiar not just to Filipinos who
recall the days of the late
dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

improved in the annual

Corruption Perceptions Index of
the Berlin-based group, a finding
local surveys support. President
Benigno Aquino III touts the
gains of his anti-corruption
campaign but highlights the
need for continuity as he steps
down in 2016.

From Indonesia's Suharto to

Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovych to
Malaysia's former chief minister
of Sarawak Abdul Taih Mahmud,
impunity for corruption is a
universal experience. At the
world's top anti-corruption
conference held here from
September 2 to 4, Filipinos drew
lessons from the wealth of
global case studies and models.

Beyond sustaining top-level antigraft efforts, Filipino delegates

at the International AntiCorruption Conference (IACC)
pointed to the need to
strengthen institutions, to
reform campaign finance, and to
address blunders like the
controversial Supreme Court
decision to grant bail to Senator
Juan Ponce Enrile.

The key issue that persists in

the Philippines is impunity.
Corruption remains low risk and
high reward. We need to see
how other countries made
corruption low reward and high
risk, and that means stolen
assets returned and jail time
served, Transparency
International-Philippines
executive director Cleo
Calimbahin told Rappler.

The anti-corruption campaign of

Philippine President Benigno
Aquino has led to the arrest of
top officials, including three
senators, a former national

Under the Aquino

administration, the Philippines

police chief and even his

predecessor.

Morales, who prosecutes state

employees and officials involved
in graft. More than 400 more
cases were filed last year.

But a few prominent people who

have been indicted have evaded
jail time and are in no danger of
imminent conviction. Some
experts doubt Aquino's
campaigns has had wider
impact and question his
effectiveness in tackling the
scourge of graft.

"This president has walked his

talk," said Peter Angelo Perfecto,
executive director of the Makati
Business Club, an influential
business group.
Others say Aquino's efforts have
been spotty and that he failed to
target many others, leading
them to conclude he only went
after his rivals.

Although corruption remains

entrenched, Aquino has made
progress by several measures,
improving the country's image
among international investors.

Ramon Casiple, a prominent

political analyst, said Aquino's
campaign "hardly made a dent"
because it targeted mainly highprofile opponents.

The Philippines' ranking in the

World Economic Forum's Global
Competitiveness Report, which
analyses various factors,
including corruption, rose to
47th out of 140 economies from
87th among 133 before Aquino
took office in 2010. Corruption,
previously the top problem,
dropped to third behind an
inefficient government
bureaucracy and inadequate
supply of infrastructure, it said.

Casiple praised the arrest of

former Senate president Juan
Ponce Enrile on plunder charges.
"That was really an
accomplishment," he said. "But
when [the arrests] stopped,
that's when the questions came
out."
Aquino's first executive order
was to establish a "truth
commission" to investigate his
predecessor - and former
economics professor - Gloria
Macapagal Arroyo for corruption
during her 2001-2010
administration, but this was
aborted by the Supreme Court.

In Transparency International's
Corruption Perception Index, a
widely used yardstick, the
Philippines rose to 85th out of
175 countries last year from
134th place out of 178 in 2010.
And corruption cases against
"high-ranking officials and their
cohorts" jumped from 189 in
2009 to 961 in 2013, the most in
18 years, according to
Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-

Politicians previously regarded

as "sacrosanct, beyond the
reach, above the law, and
everybody, [have] been made to
6

account and [are] still being

made to account, including my
immediate predecessor", Aquino
told foreign correspondents last
month.

Power corrupts absolutely. From

top left: Janet Lim Napoles and
the politicians implicated in her
PDAF/NGO scam; Sen. Juan
Ponce Enrile, Sen. Bong Revilla,
Sen. Jinggoy Estrada

Ethnic Conflict

Minority Muslim groups in the

southern Philippines
indigenous ethnic people known
collectively as Moros have
fought for self-determination for
more than 40 years.

Displacement Monitoring Centre

(IDMC).
But, after 17 years of violenceinterrupted talks, the Philippine
government and the largest
Muslim rebel group the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
agreed in October 2012 to end
the conflict, and a final peace
deal was signed in March 2014.

The conflict has killed tens of

thousands of people and, since
2000, displaced 3.5 million
people, according to the Internal

The two sides want to set up an

autonomous region, to be known
as "Bangsamoro", in the south
of the mainly Roman Catholic
country before President
Benigno Aquino steps down in
2016, giving the Muslimdominated area greater political
powers and more control over
its resources.

rebels rubbing shoulders with

mercenary kidnap groups and
clan militias.
A breakaway faction of MILF,
called the Bangsamoro Islamic
Freedom Movement (BIFM), has
vowed to continue fighting
despite the peace deal.
There are also concerns that
powerful clans who control some
areas in the region could see the
deal as a threat to their political
influence.
The presence of the army and
so many armed factions often
fans the fires of traditional
family feuds, leading to clanbased violence on Mindanao.
Both the army and rebel groups
have been drawn on several
occasions into clan
confrontations, which have
displaced thousands.
Mindanao is also prey to groups
known as "lost commands" former military or insurgent
units who are no longer under
the control of their superiors and
live off banditry and kidnapping.
Two of the most notorious are
the Pentagon Gang and Abu
Sofia.
Regular eruptions of violence
have forced hundreds of
thousands of residents from
their homes. Many return fairly
quickly, only to be displaced
again.
In total, the various conflicts in
Mindanao have displaced
millions of people since 1970.
The numbers of displaced
peaked in 2008, when an
estimated 600,000 people were
forced from their homes, making
the Philippines the country with

Bangsamoro replaces the

Autonomous Region in Muslim
Mindanao (ARMM) a region of
about 4 million people created
in 1989 with its own
government.
Currency, postal services,
defence and foreign policy will
remain under the central
government.
MILF's 10,000- to 15,000-strong
army will be decommissioned.
A plebiscite by 2015 in Muslimdominated areas in the south
will determine the shape and
size of the new Bangsamoro
region, which is rich in minerals,
oil and natural gas.
The agreement guarantees
rights of both Muslims and nonMuslims, unlike a failed 2008
peace deal that was struck
down by the Supreme Court as
unconstitutional.
PEACE NOT YET
GUARANTEED
The Mindanao region is a
melting pot of breakaway rebel
groups, pan-Asian militant
Islamist groups and communist
9

the highest number of newly

displaced that year.
A long-running Maoist
insurgency has also affected the

entire country for more than 45

years.

Cotabato City Government

forces have been ordered to
stand between two warring
sides in a land dispute in Datu
Abdullah Sangki (DAS),
Maguindanao in an effort to curb
further violence that has so far
claimed five lives, injured many
others and displaced dozens of
families.
Maj. Gen. Edmundo Pangilinan,
head of the Armys 6th Infantry
Division (6ID), said military
contingents have encamped at
DAS, Maguindanao to secure
the area and prevent further
armed confrontation between
armed Moro resident-peasants
and Ilonggo settlers who are
reportedly backed by elements

of the once-dreaded Ilaga

cultist group.

10

beefed up forces, field reports

said.

The two groups are disputing

ownership of a 40 hectare rice
farm in the town.

Pangilinan said the presence of

military and police forces will
prevent a resurgence of the
cultist Ilaga group that may
taint the gains made by the
governments peace
agreements with the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
and the Moro National Liberation
Front (MNLF).

Soldiers from the 33rd Battalion

of the 601st Brigade, a 6ID unit,
have occupied the vicinity of the
disputed land on the triboundary of Barangays Banaba,
Talisawa and Guinibon
southwest of DAS town.
Violence erupted a week ago
when members of the two rival
camps, armed with high-caliber
rifles and grenade launchers,
traded shots that resulted in
the reported killing of five
protagonist.

We will not let it (revival of

intruding cultist settlers)
resurface and cause trouble. The
military has been painstakingly
helping nurture the normalcy
being brought about by the
peace process in Central
Mindanao, he told reporters
last Wednesday at his
headquarters in Awang, Datu
Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao.

The incident also wounded other

clan members and sent dozens
of families from the town
scampering for safety for fear of
being caught in the crossfire.

The Ilaga movement,

composed mostly of migrants
from the Visayas, gained
notoriety during the Martial Law
era when its forces enjoyed
military backing in repulsing the
so-called Blackshirt rebellion,
which later evolved into the
formation of the then unified
MNLF. The MNLF had eventually
splintered into factions including
the MILF.

One of those killed was

identified as a certain
Kumander Badoy, said to be a
local leader of the cultist
Pulahan (red) group of Ilonggo
migrants from the adjacent town
of Tulunan in North Cotabato.
Followers of the slain leader
reportedly vowed to avenge his
death, while the native
Maguindanaon residents also
______________________

The southern, largely Muslim provinces of the Philippines have been

restive since Spanish colonial times and remain a largely lawless
backcountry, where separatist insurgencies have claimed around
150,000 lives over decades of fighting. A recent peace deal with the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which split from the MNLF in
1978 prompted consternation among other groups, and led to
11

jockeying for position to be able to

influence the situation when it comes
to the implementation phrase, says
Richard C. Jacobson, Philippines
director for Pacific Strategies and
Assessments, a business risk
consultancy.

Environmental
Degradation
OK, the mother of three grownups said.
Mercury use in Diwalwal is
certain to stir controversy in the
small-scale mining community
which, at its peak in 1987,
swelled to more than 200,000
people. Only last month, the
Philippines signed an
international accord banning the
use of the toxic metal.

Almost daily, many of the

estimated 18,000 small-scale
miners in Diwalwal handle
mercury and other deadly
chemicals with bare hands and
no protective masks, in spite of
warnings by health authorities
about the danger.
No clear alternative
Ive been doing this (handling
mercury) since my mid-20s,
when I first came here from
Cebu, said Durano, who settled
to Diwalwal shortly after the
gold boom in 1984. A cousin had
made it big there.

Efforts to ditch mercury in favor

of safe methods of extracting
gold have been pushed by
municipal officials as early as
2000, but the lack of a clear
alternative is a problem,
according to Mayor Joselito
Brillantes.

Starting from picking discarded

ore, or wastes, outside tunnel
portals honeycombing the
1,000-meter-high, 729-hectare
village, Durano was able to put
up three ball mills and her
current multistory house and
own a tunnel, which employs
dozens of small-time miners.

Benguet and other areas with

small-scale mining communities
have long abandoned the use of
quicksilver and resorted to
borax and other safe methods of
gold extraction.
With mercury, miners can
extract gold more efficiently. At
three or four bags of good-grade
ore, they can already catch at

With Gods help, nothing has

happened to my health. Im

12

least 5 g [of gold], Brillantes

explained.

one of the biggest mediumscale mining firms in Diwalwal.

The continued use of mercury in
Diwalwal could be a test case
for the Philippine enforcement of
the United Nations-backed
Minamata Convention, an
international treaty that seeks to
ban mercury use in over 130
countries. The accord, named
after the Japanese city
devastated by massive mercury
poisoning in 1956, aims to
eventually phase out mercury
use by 2020.

Stiff resistance
The mayor acknowledged that
exposure to mercury was too big
a health risk and the local
government had tried to stop its
use in Diwalwal.
A cease-and-desist order was
issued by the local government
in 2001, but there was
resistance from small-scale
miners, he said. They refused
to change their methods.

According to the US
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), metallic mercury
is deadly especially when its
vapors are inhaled. This
exposure can occur when
elemental (metallic) mercury is
spilled or products containing
mercury break and expose
mercury to the air, particularly
in warm or poorly ventilated
indoor spaces, the EPA said on
its website.

The fight against mercury use

was started by the incumbent
mayors brother, Joel, who was
mayor in 2001 until his murder.
We suspected that his firm
stand against mercury use may
have angered many miners,
leading to his murder,
Brillantes said.
The mayors family owns JB
Management and Mining Corp.,

Symptoms of mercury
poisoning include tremors,
emotional changes or mood
swings, insomnia,
neuromuscular changes such
as weakness, twitching,
headaches, cognitive
performance deficits, among
others. In extreme cases,
mercury poisoning destroys
kidneys or lungs leading to
death.
High risk

13

Infants and children exposed to

mercury have a high risk of
impaired neurological
development.

Up to 90 milligrams of mercury
was found per kilogram of silt in
the river. Rice, fish and mussels
from the area were found
contaminated with mercury. Up
to 38 percent of Naboc residents
were also found to be mercury
intoxicated after consuming
rice and fish contaminated with
the heavy metal.

President Aquino issued

Executive Order No. 79 last
year, banning the use of
mercury in small-scale mining.
Tests conducted by the United
Nations Industrial Development
Organization (Unido) and the
Department of Health (DOH) in
early 2000 revealed high
mercury contamination in
Diwalwal, exacerbated by
improper disposal of mercurylaced mine wastes, local health
officials and residents said.
Mercury has also contaminated
streams, waterfalls, rivers and
other water sources of the
village, and the people had to
draw drinking water from a
source 10 kilometers away,
using hoses, said Lito Adlawan,
another longtime resident.

Unhealthy place
Adlawan said the government
should be firm on stopping the
use of mercury.
Mercury is illegal, but in
Diwalwal and in other mining
areas in Compostela Valley, the
metal is being sold in the black
market for P5,000 to P8,000 per
kilogram .
The government should
intervene and not be content
with maximum tolerance,
Adlawan said in an interview
late last month.
Health and local authorities
warned that the high
concentration of mercury and
other chemicals used by over
100 ore-crushing plants have
made Diwalwal an almost
inhospitable place.

Mercury and other mining

chemicals are poisoning the
village, slowly killing us, said
Adlawan, 45, a jewelry maker.
Its high time the government
acts in helping solve the
pollution problem in Diwalwal.
A study by UK experts in late
1999 revealed mercury
pollutants from Diwalwal
streams flowed down to the
Naboc River in Barangay Naboc,
over 12 km away and
contaminated rice paddies
there.

Its really not healthy to stay

there, said Sarah Tanghian,
municipal administrator.
Tanghian said the government
had drawn up a plan to relocate
the gold-processing plants from
Diwalwal to Sitio Mebatas in
Upper Ulip village, 5 km from
14

the foot of the gold-rich

mountain.

Asked why he wasnt wearing a

protective mask or gloves,
Bulacoy replied, Its
cumbersome.
Durano, the ball mill owner,
gave a similar reason for not
wearing protective gear.

A P20-million tailings dam in a

5-ha area in Mebatas, was
finished in 2003 but miners and
gold-processing plant owners
refused to use it, officials said.

Im taking enough vitamins,

just in case. And I always see to
it my children do not come near
the ball mills or whenever Im
doing the processing, the
woman said.

Easy money
Edilberto Arreza, Southern
Mindanao director of the Mines
and Geosciences Bureau, said
the Mebatas tailings dam was
built as a long-term solution to
the pollution in Diwalwal caused
by mercury and other mine
wastes dumped in the villages
waterways.
But for Diwalwal folk, the lure of
easy money is hard to resist. For
Aljun Bulacoy, using mercury is
the only expedient way for
miners to extract gold. The 18year-old works as an operator of
a six-drum ball mill in Diwalwals
Patindol area, milling muck ores
for 30 minutes and treating this
with mercurya technique
locally known as bubbling.
He is paid P5,000 per batch of
ore loading, or after milling
some 300 bags of ore. Each bag
weighs 45 kg. In a month, he
can process up to 600 bags.

Health workers
Durano, however, admitted that
decades of exposure to mercury
have resulted in throbbing
headaches and I tend to be
forgetful at times.
Health teams from Unido and
the DOH gave detoxification
treatment to several Diwalwal
residents in 2000 following
results of tests validating
mercury contamination in the
gold-rich village, said Charlita
Baluis, resident sanitary
inspector in Diwalwal from 1993
to 2000.
Four of my colleagues at the
village health unit who were
found to have high mercury
levels in their bodies were
treated, Baluis said.

We capture as much as 60
percent of the gold from ore
waste using mercury, said
Bulacoy, who has been into the
trade for just over a year, as he
poured mercury from the edge
of a shallow basin to a cough
syrup bottle, before tightly
turning the cap.

She admitted that she, too, was

found to be contaminated by the
heavy metal, but declined the
detox for fear that the drug used
in the process could complicate
her asthma. She, instead,
15

requested that she be treated at

the municipal health office at
the town proper, some 29 km
from Diwalwal.

The health worker said adequate

health awareness and education
campaigns about mercury have
been conducted in Diwalwal, but
residents there seem
incorrigible.

Baluis said she used to

experience headaches and
tremors, or involuntary muscle
movements, which could be
symptoms of mercury poisoning.

And who can blame them?

Whats important for them is to
earn money for their families as
quickly as possible. Using
mercury, they can already
process a bag of ore into a 5-g
gold in a matter of minutes,
Baluis said.

Alternative treatment slowly

cured me as the symptoms are
now gone, she said.
At least a dozen miners were
randomly picked and detoxified,
an almost negligible number
compared to the total village
population of 40,000 that time.
Due to the costs of treatment
(P35,000 per patient), the
medical mission has not been
repeated.

She said people in Diwalwal

tended to squander their health
in search of wealth.
After years of digging, they
may find wealth but they get
sick, so they squander that
newfound wealth to search for
health, Baluis said.

Squandered health

16

Inequality

Whats clear for me is that in

contexts where theres an
uneven power relation, from VFA
to the exclusion of LGBTs,
vulnerable communities become
more vulnerable and this
vulnerability has many layers.
Lets unpack the issue and
tackle its complexity, otherwise
we dishonour those who have
suffered and are still suffering.

In Davao City, a landmark

legislation against
discrimination, Ordinance 041712 was passed in
December2012 : An Act
Declaring Unlawful, Acts and
Conduct of Discrimination Based
on Sex, Gender Identity, Sexual
Orientation, Race, Color,
Descent, National or Ethnic
Origin, and Religious Affiliation
or Beliefs and Penalizing the
Same
17

The ordinance defines

discrimination asany
act, or conduct which
withholds, excludes,
restricts, curtails
demeans human dignity,
or otherwise impairs the
recognition, enjoyment
and exercise of human
rights and basic
freedoms in the
economic, labor, social,
cultural, educational or
any other field of public
life based on sex, gender
identity, sexual
orientation, race, color,
descent, national or
ethnic origin, and
religious affiliation or
beliefs.
There is a need to
unpack the meaning of
sexual orientation &
gender identity. GLAAD, which is
rewriting the script for LGBT
equality, defines gender identity
as ones internal, deeply held
sense of ones gender. For
transgender people, their own
internal gender identity does not
match the sex they were
assigned at birth. Most people
have a gender identity of man
or woman (or boy or girl). For
some people, their gender
identity does not fit neatly into
one of those two choices. Unlike
gender expression (see below)
gender identity is not visible to
others. In turn, GLAAD defines
sexual orientation is that which
describes an individuals
enduring physical, romantic

and/or emotional attraction to

another person. Gender identity
and sexual orientation are not
the same. Transgender people
may be straight, lesbian, gay, or
bisexual. For example, a person
who transitions from male to
female and is attracted solely to
men would identify as a straight
woman.
Let us promote the proposed
national law, co-authored by
Congresswoman Kaka Bagao,which writes out sexual
orientation & gender identity
(SOGI) as one of the features of
the proposed Philippine AntiDiscrimination law.

18

Our sexual & bodily rights are

universal human rights based on
the inherent freedom, dignity, &
equality of all human beings &
they are central to the
attainment of gender justice,
womens rights, & rights of all
human beings of all sexual
orientations & gender identities.
The advancement of these

rights is crucial for the

advancement of democracy &
the well being of our
communities & development. It
goes hand in hand with the
struggle for economic rights &
adequate standards of living for
all.
--Isabelita Solamo Antonio

Poverty & Malnutrition/Health

19

The report cited the National

Nutrition Survey 2013 which
indicates that in the last 20
years, stunting rates have gone
down by only 9 percent from
39% in 1993 to 30% in 2013.
Moreover, the study also shows
that children from poorer

households in both rural and

urban settings and those living
in conflict and disaster-prone
areas face greater risk of
malnutrition, particularly
stunting.

20

force participation,
and productivity in
later life.
Ned Olney, Save the
Childrens Country
Director said:
"Malnutrition is
undermining
childrens
development,
economic growth and
peoples capacity to
get their way out of
poverty. By tackling child
malnutrition alongside poverty
and food security, we are
helping save and tap full
potentials of millions of Filipino
children."

Dr. Amado Parawan, Save the

Childrens Health and Nutrition
advisor said:
The assumption has always
been that Filipinos are just
genetically short but we what
we actually see now are
generations of stunted and
malnourished children. Because
shortness is considered a racial
trait, it is not seen as a serious
concern. Stunting is more than
just being short, it impacts
childrens future because it
hinders physical and mental
growth.

With the upcoming electoral

campaign and Philippines
deadline to meet UN Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) on
child health, Save the Children

The report also shows that

nutrition during the first 1000
daysfrom a mothers
pregnancy up to childs second
birthdayis crucial in
preventing stunting among
children. Studies have shown
that children who were not able
to achieve optimum growth
within their first 1,000-day
window is at higher risk of
impaired cognitive
development, which has
adverse effects on their
schooling performance, labor

launches today its biggest

campaign yet against child
malnutrition with our slogan
Lahat Dapat (No Child Left
21

Behind) to call the

government, civil
society and the public
to step up in its
efforts in reducing
child malnutrition
especially in the first
1000 days of a childs
life.

Unemployment
This is partly explained by the
high value set on further
education in the Philippines:
young Filipinos typically spend
some time in college before
entering the labour market,
contributing to the lower
participation rate. Others in the
region go to work earlier.

One reason is that job creation

has struggled to keep pace with
an ever-expanding population.
In three of the past five years,
the number of people entering
the job market has been greater
than the number of jobs
created.

Another factor may be the low

quality of jobs available. Last
year, just 58 per cent of workers
in both formal and informal
employment were in what
were described as paid jobs. Of
the rest, 28 per cent were selfemployed, with no guaranteed
income, and 11 per cent worked
on family-owned farms or other
businesses where they typically
receive food and lodging but no
actual cash, according to official
statistics.

The conundrum highlights the

difficulty of spreading the
benefits of economic growth and
suggests they have yet to trickle
down to more deprived areas.
Participation in the labour force
remains relatively low. Only
about 65 per cent of the
population aged 15 and above is
looking for work, one of the
lowest levels in the region. This
compares with 78 per cent in
Vietnam, 72 per cent in Thailand
and 68 per cent in Indonesia.

22

In a government
survey, 18 per cent
of workers said they
would like to work
longer hours or get
an extra job. Only
35 per cent of these
worked 40 hours or
more a week.
In an effort to mirror
the success of its
Asian neighbours,
the Philippine
government is seeking to
improve the quality of jobs
available by ramping up
employment in manufacturing,
according to FT Confidential
Research, an investment
research service at the Financial
Times. But it has had little
success so far, hindered by
issues such as higher wages,
limited infrastructure and red

Benjamin Diokno, an economist

at the University of the
Philippines and former budget
minister, says this relatively
large number of unpaid workers
about 4 million people
"bloats" the ranks of the
employed and makes
unemployment appear less
serious than it is.

23

tape, which make the country

less competitive than its Asean
peers.

drive the country's

consumption-driven domestic
economy but doing little to
promote employment.
Jeremiah Opiniano, a researcher
at the University of Santo Tomas
in Manila, points to central bank
data showing that families of
overseas workers spend most of
their disposable income on food,
household goods, eduction,
medical expenses and debt
repayment. Just 6.7 per cent
goes to savings and investment.

Only 16.5 per cent of workers

were in industrial jobs in the
second quarter, according to the
latest statistics.
The country's uneven
employment market has
traditionally led millions of
Filipinos to seek better-paying
jobs overseas. One out of every
10 Filipinos works abroad,
sending billions of dollars in
remittances home, helping to

Little wonder that job creation

cannot keep up with population
growth.

Substance Abuse
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF
DRUG USE
CY 2014

Those who belong to the 30-34

age group comprised most of
the admitted cases with twenty
percent (20.24%), followed by
those who were in the 40 and
above bracket with nineteen
percent (18.78%) and 25-29 age
group with eighteen percent
(17.78%). The average age is 30
years old. The youngest was 9
years old and the oldest was 78
years old.

Based on the reports submitted

by twenty-nine (29) residential
and two (2) non-residential
treatment and rehabilitation
facilities, there were a total of
4,392 admissions reported in
the year 2014. Of this number,
3,388 were admitted for the first
time, 772 were relapsed or readmitted cases either in the
same or different facility and
232 were reported to have
sought treatment to an outpatient facility.
Ninety-two percent (92.44%) of
the admitted cases were males
and almost eight percent
(7.56%) were females. The ratio
of male to female is 12:1.

Almost half of the admitted

cases were single (49.07%),
while thirty-three percent
(33.31%) were married.
Fourteen percent (14.46%)
reported to have live-in partners
and the remaining three percent
(3.17%) were either separated,
widow/er or divorced.
24

Of the total
admission, forty-eight
percent (47.59%)
were unemployed,
twenty-seven percent
(26.73%) were
workers/employees,
eleven percent
(11.43%) were
businessman/selfemployed, 8 percent
(7.65%) were OSY
and four percent
(4.12%) were

Based on the educational

attainment, thirty percent
(29.83%) of the center clients
comprised those who have
reached college level, followed
by those who reached high
school with twenty-five percent
(24.68%) and those who
finished high school at sixteen
percent (15.73%).

students.
Forty-six percent (45.56%) of
the reported cases were residing
in the National Capital Region
(NCR) prior to their
rehabilitation, while sixteen
percent came from both
Region 4-A (16.46%) and Region
3 (16.39%).
As to the age when the client
first tried to use drugs, fortyeight percent (47.79%) of the
reported cases belong to the 1519 age group. Half of the
reported cases (50.30%) have
taken drugs 2 to 5 times a week
while twenty-one percent
(21.20%) have it on a daily
basis.

Most of the admitted cases

belong to the 5,999.00 and
below income group with
twenty-three percent (22.52%).
The average monthly family
income among center clients is
PhP 15,423.00.

25