The Marcos government’s that only one out of ten Filipinos live below the poverty line is a blatant insult to broad masses who do not receive sufficient wages and struggle everyday to provide for the needs of their families. Marcos arrived at this astonishingly low figure of poverty incidence by setting the minimum food requirement to an implausible ₱64 day or ₱21.30 per meal. This figure has roused widespread condemnation.

Marcos and his officials are deliberately misrepresenting the true cost of living in the Philippines. They are painting a false picture that Filipinos now live in middle class comforts to obscure the fact that majority of Filipinos are poor and struggling to make ends meet.

These grossly downplayed poverty statistics also serve the purpose of keeping down wages and salaries. In the past two years, the Marcos government has refused to heed the demand for substantial increases in wages, complete disregarding the rapid deterioration in the living conditions of the majority of the people.

Workers and toiling people must demand recognition of their social and economic rights, particularly their right to higher standards of living and better quality of life. They must press on with their demand for higher wages corresponding to decent standards of living that are now estimated to be ₱1,200 for a family of five. They must condemn the Marcos regime for keeping minimum wages way below just standards.

The Marcos regime must be held accountable for its utter failure to control skyrocketing prices of rice, fuel and other basic commodities, services and utilities. Its policies, hinged on foreign investments, import liberalization, rising public debt and increasing taxes, have caused the aggravation of the economic crisis.

Marcos’ policies serve well the interests of foreign capitalists, their local big business partners, big landlords and bureaucrat capitalists. They make billions of pesos from government infrastructure projects, the plunder of the country’s resources and exploitation of cheap labor. On the other hand, the broad masses of the Filipino people suffer from widespread unemployment, especially among the youth, and massive economic dislocation of millions of people in both the cities and countryside.

The anti-people and anti-national policies of the Marcos regime are fueling widespread grievance and discontent. It is only a matter of time before the Philippine social volcano erupts as people rise up in collective outrage.