The year 2017 comes to a close with news of the Philippine economy GDP growth projections higher and Filipinos’ sentiment regarding next year’s prospects generally optimistic.
Beneath the smiling and upbeat façade lies a smoldering cauldron of gross inequality, unfairness and exclusion.
Credit Suisse’s 2017 Global Wealth Report showed that nearly 87 percent of adult Filipinos—or 52.5 million out of 60.7 million who are 20 years old and above—mostly lived in poverty with per-capita wealth of less than $10,000 (P500,000). In contrast, only a tenth of 1 percent—around 60,000 individuals—have per-capita wealth of over $1 million (P50 million).
And when you consider the combined wealth of Forbes’s 50 richest Filipinos, the wealth gulf is even more stark. In 2017 the 50 richest Filipinos’ combined wealth is estimated at $73.9 billion. That is equivalent to nearly 24.4 percent of the country’s 2016 GDP of $304.9 billion. This proportion has changed very little since 2013.
The vast majority struggle daily to cope with high prices of food, lack of access to health facilities, Internet, credit and decent shelter.
As a perspective, the Filipino rich have been giving charitable grants and donations mainly through their corporate foundations. Indeed, the Philippines has the longest recorded history of organized giving among the economies studied in 2011 by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
Regrettably, the Filipinos’ famed generosity has been waning in recent years. In the 2017 World Giving Index, the Philippines ranked 54th out of 139, falling from 16th out of 135 in 2013. While the Filipinos were the world’s 14th most-active volunteers (seventh in terms of their numbers), they weren’t as willing to donate money (95th) or to help a stranger (66th).
This is even truer among the Philippines’s richest. Data from an Entrepeneur.com.ph March 2016 article shows that a majority of the Forbes’s Top 10 Richest Filipinos can afford to allocate more funds for their respective philanthropies. Some even spent less than one percent of their net worth on their companies’ CSR mandate.
The amount dedicated to philanthropy is vital because it’s a measure of one’s character and civics. Equally vital is where the charitable spending went and to what purpose. Today, many among the Filipino rich pursue scholarship programs, school buildings, or one-off grants on the occasion of a calamity or the anniversary of the donor. All three are welcome but comply with no established criteria nor clear civic purpose. In truth, they are palliative in nature and of no marked change.
And yet achieving true equality and genuine fairness in Philippine society offers multiple paths. To mention some: more robust investments in basic education and modern skills training, improving child health and nutrition, or constructing livable shelters (not the chicken coops some developers pass off as “socialized housing”).
Charitable giving could even be directed to research and development (R&D) for improved food production or to oceanography for protecting our seas. Both areas would benefit many farmers and fisherfolk, among our poorest sectors.
Research grants can be awarded to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, the Philippine Rice Research Institute, or to several state universities specializing in fruits and vegetable production. Such endowments may spark a nutrition revolution where Filipinos become taller and healthier—and, eventually, more productive and ambitious.
Many Western philanthropists like Bill and Melinda Gates, Mark Zuckerburg and his wife Priscilla, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos have already started to devote their wealth in this manner.
Filipino philanthropists should rethink, revise and reconfigure their gift giving. They should instead adopt a systemic form of philanthropy that will be a strategic intervention to making a more equitable and inclusive country.
E-mail: angara.ed@gmail.com, Facebook and Twitter: @edangara