A BRIEFING paper released in September by international development organization Oxfam revealed that across Asia, there are stark and worsening inequalities across multiple dimensions.
“Wealth is heavily concentrated: the top 10 percent now capture between 60% and 77 percent of national income in major Asian economies; the richest 1 percent hold 40.1 percent of national wealth in India and 31.4 percent in China. Meanwhile, the poorest 50 percent earn only 12–15 percent of total income, a share that has been shrinking since 2022, with over 70 percent of Asia’s inequality occurring within, rather than between, countries,” the report said.
Further, the combined wealth of Asia’s richest 10 billionaires surpasses the annual GDP of several poorer Asian nations, even as gains for the bottom 50% have occurred in Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
This report kicked off a documentary by Channel News Asia released last week, which focused on the Philippines and explored the deep causes of inequality that persists to this day. Through interviews with experts from the academe, the government, civil society, and with case studies who shared their personal struggles, the documentary traced the roots of inequality in the country and showed why it continues to plague our society.
Several factors come into play: the class system during the Spanish era, the dominance of just a few prominent families, unjust land ownership, and the question of who truly benefits from development. Education has profound consequences, beginning from a student’s poverty and lack of access to educational options, spilling over into grim employment prospects.
All these preserve the status quo, providing even better prospects for the already rich while consigning the poor to difficult living conditions.
Toward the end of the documentary, however, another issue was raised besides the already daunting factors that have shaped inequality for centuries: corruption.
When funds intended to provide the people with means and opportunities to improve their lives are squandered, those who pocket the money enrich themselves even more. They bury the rest in poverty, stagnation, and hopelessness. And so the cycle is perpetuated.
Calls for a decisive fight against corruption, no matter how often they have been made, do not diminish the urgency of a clean and honest government. Even as many other things compete for the administration’s focus, especially at the start of the year, it must not stray from this objective. Words must be matched by actions, and pronouncements should be carried out without hesitation or half-heartedness. In fact, popularity should not even be a consideration anymore, because true leadership entails making difficult decisions.
That there is a significant gap between rich and poor is already a serious matter that must be addressed by policy and firm implementation. That the gap is widening, and through the actions of the very same people who vowed to protect the public’s interest, is grossly unacceptable.
