If surveys are to be believed, the number of Filipinos who consider themselves poor had dropped.

Results of the most recent one conducted by the Social Weather Stations said from 52 percent in September 2011, the number of Philippines citizens who rate themselves “mahirap” went down to 45 percent in December 2011.

While this could mean good news, the mere realization that almost half of the country’s almost 100 million population lives below the poverty line is enough for anybody to worry.

A non-Filipino once made an observation that poverty in the Philippines “can be manifold.” Among the causes he cited are the Filipinos’ laziness, lack of quality consciousness, abuse by the rich ones, lack of love for God, corruption and mismanagement by the government, calamities, among others.

Despite these many survey results and observations, however, many of us still remain unmindful and undisturbed by the country’s real situation.

Many politicians still manage to steal money from the government through the taxes that are being paid by the wage earners and ordinary citizens. The worst is, while ordinary employees bear the burden of having their salaries deducted for taxes, many businessmen and rich people are able to evade taxes.

Poverty can indeed be manifold. It cannot be addressed overnight and finding solution to it is not a walk in the park. We don’t have to deal with the causes one by one. We just have to choose on one and focus on solving it and for sure we can achieve something.*