poverty

Poverty - the state of not having enough money to take care of basic needs such as food, clothing, and housing.

–Encarta Dictionary Tools

We cannot deny the fact that poverty is one of the major dilemmas our country is facing right now. Probably, this is one of the reasons why we find it difficult to improve as a nation.

There are actually a lot of reasons why poverty continues to be a major problem particularly here in the Phillipines. Most of the people blame it all to the government. Majority says it is because of corruption. A number of people also say that the system of the collection of taxes is the problem. Others think that the dearth of job opportunities here in our country should be blamed. Some say that it is because of overpopulation.

Whatever the reason is, it should not be our focus. Keeping on attacking the actions of the government and blaming it all to them would not help solve this big dilemma that we have. It could even worsen things.

It does not mean that because we are living in a country where poverty is present, we would not do something. We should not think that because we our lacking resources, we would not be successful anymore. Many among the successful people of our country today began from scratch. Henry Sy, to name one, came from a very poor family. He would even walk barefoot from his house just to go to school. But because of his hard work and determination, he was able to put up several establishments. One of these is the very famous Shoe Mart (or SM as what we call it) that has many branches all over the Philippines. In fact, Henry Sy is one of the top three billionaires of our country today.

During our Philippine history days, we have learned that Andres Bonifacio grew up in a poor family. He lost his parents at an early age. He stood as the parents of his younger siblings. Despite the bitter events that occurred in his life, he did not allow it to destroy his life. Instead, he looked for ways to survive and continued on with his life. He sold canes and fans to earn a living. He did self-studying by reading books.

How about us? Are we just going to sit down and wait for a blessing from heaven? We should also do our part. What can we do to help solve this problem? If we would only have a lot of Henry Sys and Andres Bonifacios here in our country, then no doubt we could surely get out of this mess. We should fight against poverty. We should not make poverty a hindrance to success.