Returning Senator Jinggoy Estrada is batting for a package of measures to provide womb-to-tomb benefits for the nation’s poorest of the poor which constitute 20 percent of the population—one of every five Filipinos is dirt-poor.
He said that farmers and children of the poor remain caught in a stranglehold of abject poverty, existing on a scant P50 for their daily needs.
“We are a Christian nation and whatever we do to the least of our brethren, we do that to God,” Estrada said.
Estrada noted that the children of poor families “are the most vulnerable sector, since daily hunger robs them of their quota of intellect that touches off learning disabilities and reduced capacity to gain competencies for work.”
Rather than craft piecemeal approaches for poverty reduction, Estrada said “a comprehensive, long-term strategy must be established as legislative agenda to bring down poverty to the irreducible minimum.’
He said that this is what he will seek to attain in the provision of womb-to-tomb benefits for the poorest of the poor.
“It is not enough that we provide money dole-outs, we must also have a survey of whatever skills that those in the poverty threshold possess—and we must use such skills for needful services to the community where the poor are. Indeed, we should create the opportunities in which we can employ the poor,” he added.
Estrada said that in any government office, “a daily average of 35 needy people would seek help, mostly money support for their sick, their dead, or their newborn or job recommendations—and an informal survey of such people would provide insights what lawmakers need to craft to help them out in the long term.”
In the event that he would be given a chance to return to the Senate, he would file womb-to-tomb measures, but this early, he has already plunged into focus group discussions with experts and resource persons with a view to crafting his pet measure.”‹
