Saturday, June 27, 2015

Rich and Poor in the Philippines




I snapped this photo from my taxi. What caught my eye was the sidewalk advertisement for a barber shop that says: "Haircut with free massage P40.

Forty pesos is worth around 90 cents.


My taxi driver said the massage offered was just a bit of kneading on the neck and shoulders, nothing more.  But nonetheless, P40 is very cheap. If you go to a highend place, you'll pay around P400 to P450 for a haircut. 

That's a big difference.

The Philippines is like that. I sometimes feel as if this country has two worlds, one for those who have limited funds, and another for the wealthy.  One can buy a cup of coffee for P5 in a (real) hole in the wall, and one can pay P120 for a cup of coffee at Starbucks.  There are budget restaurants and there are restaurants that cost just as much as those in California. There are places like Divisoria (in Manila) that sell inexpensive clothes and other items; and there are shopping malls that sell designer items.

Once, in California, I met a person who called herself Filipina American. She had Spanish and American blood, but grew up in exclusive gated Forbes Park in Metro Manila. She described how she was driven to and from school and associated only with other wealthy folk. She was not proud telling me about her backgtround. She said it felt as if she were living in a bubble, and she begrudged how out of touch she was with the real Philippines.

Here in the Philippines, there are some wealthy people who have absolutely no idea how the poor live. They are shut inside their airconditioned cars and airconditioned homes and mingle only with other wealthy people. There are some Spanish-blood and Chinese-blood Filipinos who make money from Filipinos but who are totally isolated from the very people who have made them rich.

This 2013 article talks about the distribution of wealth in the Philippines. I quote:

"Despite this, the Philippines has one of the highest poverty rates among emerging Asian economies.
The poverty incidence stood at 27.9 percent as of the first semester of 2012, almost unchanged from the 28.6 percent in 2009."

This Reuter's article from 2013 has interesting pictures contrasting the rich and poor in the Philippines.

While the above sources are dated 2013, I think the situation remains that the economic gap between the haves and have-nots in the Philippines is widening.


Read more:

Cebu Philippines: Awesome Boy Studies on Sidewalk

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