Poverty: The Hindrance to Manila's Progress

Many say that poverty hinders the progress in a big city like Manila, but what is poverty anyway? How come it has a huge effect in a huge and progressing city? Poverty is actually the lack of basic needs like lack of shelter, food, medicine and education (Government of New Brunswick, 2009). According to Christensen, poverty is the time when a person could not provide his/her basic needs or ending the day without eating three times a day (Christensen, T., 2012). Poverty is a condition when people hardly meet their needs and become less productive in the society. Therefore, if people in a city become less productive, the city will also become unproductive. That is most likely the reason Manila is slowly degrading.

There are numerous causes of poverty. The first is population, second is economics, third is lack of resources, fourth is poor education, fifth is poverty cycle and sixth is natural disasters (Philippine Children’s Foundation, 2005). There is a huge population in Manila because it is known as the center of trading in the Philippines. In addition, according to the Mission Ministries Philippines, “There are 586 slums in Metro Manila alone and 27.6million Filipinos (33%) live below the poverty standard” (Philippine Children’s Foundation, 2005). From another source, the cause of poverty is corruption, injustice and greed of the government officials (Tamayo, E., 2011). It’s very surprising that there were many causes of poverty. That’s could be a reason why many people are experiencing poverty.

Poverty is a problem that connects to other big problems. One of them is overpopulation which is the main reason why many people would want to implement RH Bill. Overpopulation also leads to scarcity of resources so many people are experiencing hunger and lack of needs. According to Miller, “The more our communities grow, the more we throw away.” (Miller, A., 2012). It only means the more people in the place the more the waste they produce. The researcher conducted interviews to students from Manila. The question is “Is Manila a sustainable place?” and the common answers were no. Mainly their reason was Manila is always crowded and has a messy environment. Some considered it sustainable because the society for them is quite nice and for economic, they see that Manila is very upgraded so they think it has a good economy. People have different view on a certain issue so it is better understand each side.

Manila is a really big place yet crowded, advance in technology but unprogressive. Poverty is one of the cause of the continuous downfall of Manila. Poverty leads to overpopulation and pollution of the place. According to Celdran, “Manila can be chaotic and spiritual, dirty and divine, gritty and gorgeous all at once (Celdran, C., 2007). Manila is not that bad, for some people Manila is a very historical place and its beauty should be preserved. The researcher believes that there is still hope for Manila to rise back again because every problem always have a solution.