Mag-uno man sila sa suyod? We still can see in
the news feeds and even in our own town a number of people roaming around and
doing their activities outside their houses even with the strong warnings of
the local and national governments to stay at home. In fact, going out is
considered as the majority’s contribution in spreading the virus.
There are reports
that the poorest of the poor are the ones to break the protocol especially in
social distancing and home quarantine. There are even posts in the social media
sites condemning them as the culprits of the local transmissions. But haven’t
we looked in their situations? What would they do inside a dilapidated house
with walls made of light materials and no plumbing?
Report of the
Philippine Statistics Authority states that the full year 2018 poverty
incidence among population, or the proportion of poor Filipinos whose per
capita income is not sufficient to meet their basic food and non-food needs,
was estimated at 16.6 percent. This translates to 17.6 million Filipinos who lived
below the poverty threshold estimated at PhP 10,727, on average, for a family
of five per month in 2018.
In
its Macro Poverty Outlook for East Asia and the Pacific report, the World Bank
projected poverty incidence in the Philippines at 20.8 percent by the end of
2019, down from 26 percent in 2015, the latest comparable full-year date from
the Philippine government.
Based
on the results of the 2008 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey, 36 percent of
families in the bottom 30% income stratum do not have electricity in their
homes compared to 8 percent among families in the upper 70% income stratum.
Eighty four percent of the total families have access to a safe source of water
supply. Considered as clean and safe sources of water supply are community
water system and protected well. The remaining 16 percent of families obtain
their water from sources considered unsafe, such as unprotected well (5%),
developed spring (4%), undeveloped spring (2%), river, stream, pond, lake or
dam (1%), rainwater (less than one percent), and tanker truck or peddler (3%).
These
are purely statistics. But these numbers have faces, needs and feelings. We can
see them on the news trying to buy food in a congested marketplace; we can
observe them on their front yards drinking the hours away since they do not have
anything to do inside the small space they call a house; and we can hear them
singing through the karaoke since that’s the only thing they know on how to
cope. We see them apprehended on checkpoints since they are trying to look for
food for the family.
Decades
of research have already documented that people who deal with stressors such as
low family income, discrimination, limited access to health care, exposure to
crime are highly susceptible to physical and mental disorders, low educational
attainment, and low IQ scores, noted Farah (2015), a University of Pennsylvania
professor.
A
major implication of the cognitive neuroscience research on development, Farah
said, is that it challenges the widely held notion that the poor have only
themselves to blame for their circumstances.
Surveys
have shown that a very common view about why poor people are poor is that they
don’t try hard enough, they’re irresponsible, they make poor decisions, they
don’t stay in school, et cetera. But … neurons don’t deserve blame or credit.
They don’t expend effort. They don’t have good or bad behaviors. They just
behave according to the laws of the natural world.
Certain
nutrients have greater effects on brain development than do others. These
include protein, energy, certain fats, iron, zinc, copper, iodine, selenium,
vitamin A, choline, and folate. Circuit-specific behavioral and neuro-imaging
tests are being developed for use in progressively younger infants to more
accurately assess the effect of nutrient deficits both while the subject is
deficient and after recovery from the deficiency (Georgieff, 2007). Most of
these nutrients are absent in a poor man’s diet.
Therefore,
the chemical component of the brains was underdeveloped due to the situations
and environment the poor has been exposed to.
Yet,
the well-off and the middle class would insist: What about common sense? Does
it need a lot of well-developed neurons to function and follow simple rules?
Hunger
increases your impulsiveness and reduces your ability to make long-term
decisions. This is why you shouldn’t shop on an empty stomach. A
complex web of signals throughout the brain and body drives how and when we
feel hungry. And even the question of why we feel hungry is not always simple
to answer. The drive to eat comes not only from the body's need for energy, but
also due to self-preservation. We have to eat so to survive.
In
this present situation where the pandemic continues to claim lives, the LEARNED
individuals must work hand in hand with those who are trying to live. The
culture of blame is another intellectual deficit. That is the reason why HELP
from the neighbors can be considered as one of the solutions for people to get
by. Indifference and personal comparisons are silent killers.
No comments:
Post a Comment