Filipinos stand up, pledge to fight poverty

By Associated Press MANILA, Philippines--Thousands of Filipinos joined an international campaign to end global poverty Wednesday by standing up and making a symbolic pledge in the world's most populous region, where more than 640 million live on less than $1 a day. The pledge in part rejects excuses that allow 50,000 people to die every day because of extreme poverty and the growing gap between rich and poor. It urges government leaders to save the lives of the poorest citizens, tackle inequality, govern fairly, fight corruption, and fulfill human rights. The "Stand Up, Speak Out" pledge is part of the UN campaign to promote the Millennium Development Goals that include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, and ensuring a sustainable environment by 2015. The Asia-Pacific region had more than one billion people living on less than $1 a day in 1990, but that number has now dropped to 641 million and is likely to be cut in half by 2015, according to an Asian Development Bank-UN report released last week. China has made the biggest headway, with one in three Chinese living in poverty in 1990, compared to one in 10 today, the report said. But other countries were lagging behind, among them the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Last year, 24 million people from 87 countries around the world stood up against poverty, with India leading Asians with 9 million people, followed by Nepal with 3 million and the Philippines with 2.4 million. In Manila, the Philippine capital, about 2,000 government officials, teachers, students, soldiers and ordinary citizens, many of them wearing white wristbands with sketches of multi-colored human figures, assembled early Wednesday at the seaside Rizal Park to make the pledge. Agnes Aleman of the UN Information Center said the Philippines was targeting 3 million to stand up and make the pledge -- in parks, government and private offices, schools, hospitals, restaurants and even at Starbucks stores -- around the country from 5 a.m. to midnight. An auditor working with the UN office in Manila will certify the final figure for the country. "We would like to be one with the others in commemorating our fight against poverty," Philippine Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral said. "It is a gesture that we recognize our effort to fight poverty, but really the fight itself -- what we are doing in order to eradicate poverty in our nation." She said in 1990, about 27 percent of Filipinos lived in extreme poverty -- on less than P1,022 pesos a month -- but this has gone down to 17 percent currently. Assistant Secretary Dolores Castillo of the National Anti-Poverty Commission said the country's financial stability plus a combination of government social services, including subsidies for food and medicines, have helped reduce the incidence of extreme poverty.