Only eight men hold and enjoy the treasure and wealth of half of the world’s population.
Perhaps, more shockingly to us is that only one percent of more than one hundred million Filipinos control the country’s wealth and economy.
Both realities are heart-rending – an astoundingly unbelievable fact that the reality shakes us down like as if an earthquake with magnitude 10 had hit us with nary a soul even knowing it.
Amazing but true!
I almost puked. The news release by Oxfam, an international anti-poverty organization, made headlines around the world but I don’t know if the many who read it were affected or merely gave it a shrug.
“It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when 1 in 10 people survive on less than $2 (P100) a day,” Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International, said.
I guess the revelation will just become a mere statistic as poverty has become a daily encounter with suffering millions around the globe that they have all but become inured to their dreadful circumstance.
But truth to ask, does this news headline even bother the superrich families among us?
Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, has $75B to his name, followed by Amancio Ortega, owner of clothing retailer Zara, with $67B; financing wizard Warren Buffett, $60.8B, then coming fourth is Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim Helu with $50B.
Jeff Bezos, founder of on-line store Amazon.com, is ranked fifth richest with $45.2B; Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of the world-famous social media platform Facebook, is in sixth place with $44.6B in the bank; Larry Ellison, founder and chair of software giant Oracle and Michael Bloomberg, former New York City Mayor and financial info provider, with $40B.
Well, you can rationalize and say, we live in a free enterprise, right?
But the love of money, as the Holy Bible says, is the root of all evil.
If you care to argue, isn’t the yawning gap between the rich and the poor is unmistakably created by avarice and greed? I don’t care if my logic is a little fractured but, tough as it may be, the wealth of the world – the wealth of this country in particular is being shared exclusively and selfishly by just a shrewd few.
Okay, okay. Maybe some are just smarter than the rest, huh?
Look, a hungry nation, a hungry populace, is the best recipe for a revolution. As more and more Filipino families continue to live below the poverty line, the collective cries of those in despair and desolation seemed to have been ignored by those in government.
Just after winning the Republican National Convention, then presidential candidate Ronald Reagan said: “The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them right away.”
I agree wholeheartedly. Those outside of government and who are doing great in private are being wooed to join executive positions in the bureaucracy but they shy away, afraid that they may be contaminated by the virus of indolence and corruption.
This exasperating inequality has prevented Philippine society to breed a strong middle class that would have helped shaped a “society with a conscience.”
There must be a tipping point somewhere before it becomes too late in the day to stave off the growing restiveness within.
Verily, inequality is a serious threat to the democratic institutions that are now in place.
Is there someone who can rectify and shoot down this thing called “inequality”? (Email your feedback to fredlumba@yahoo.com.) GOD bless the Philippines!
