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Growth that lifts the poor is Duterte’s economic challenge

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Dharel Placido and Joel Guinto, ABS-CBN News

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/news-special1/nation/06/29/062916-tindera.jpg"/><figcaption><div class="embed-desc">Maricar Chatto, a former maid in Dubai, tends to her sari-sari store in Davao City. <em>Dharel Placido/ABS-CBN News</em></div></figcaption></figure></div><p>DAVAO CITY - Single mother Maricar Chatto has not seen her life in the slums improve despite shuffling between jobs here and abroad, but she hopes to finally feel the gains of a robust economy once President-elect Rodrigo Duterte assumes office on Thursday.</p><p>Despite <a href="http://news.abs-cbn.com/business/05/19/16/economy-grows-69-pct-in-first-quarter-beats-forecast" target="_blank">stellar growth rates</a> that outpaced China, around a quarter of the population live in poverty, including those in Chatto’s community of wood and tin shanties a few minutes drive from Duterte’s house here. </p><p>The 71-year-old Duterte has promised to remedy this by shifting government resources to far-flung provinces, lowering income tax rates, and expanding a cash transfer program for the poorest of the poor.</p><p>“Tingnan mo ang bigas, ang mahal na. Yung mga trabaho parang kulang,” Chatto told ABS-CBN News, as she tended to her small sari-sari store that earns just P400 a day, barely enough to send her two teenaged daughters to school.</p><p>Chatto earned roughly the same amount working as a maid in Dubai for four years, but came home last March because her employer refused to give her a raise.</p><p>By the time she got home, however, her marriage had crumbled and her husband left with one of their three children.</p><p>The 34-year-old is a target beneficiary of Duterte’s plan to set up a Cabinet-level department that will look after the welfare of 2.4 million Filipinos working overseas.</p><p>“Sana may maibigay si Pangulo para sa mga OFW na kagaya ko. Hindi lang sana pera. Sana ma-monitor ang mga OFW, yung iba binubugbog,” she said.</p><p>INCLUSIVE GROWTH</p><div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/news-special1/nation/06/29/062916-dutertefinance.jpg"/><figcaption><div class="embed-desc">President-elect Rodrigo Duterte speaks with his finance secretary, Carlos Dominguez, at a business forum in Davao City last week.</div></figcaption></figure></div><p>In step with Duterte’s tough rhetoric against crime, he will “neither be timid nor shy” in increasing spending by as much as 50 percent to spur development in the countryside, long neglected in favor of “Imperial Manila,” his economic managers told businessmen here last week.</p><p>“They voted (for Duterte) because the good macroeconomic numbers did not translate to a better life for all,” incoming finance secretary Carlos Dominguez said.</p><p>“This is not coming out of Mars or left field or what. This is what the people want. They want poverty rates to go down. They want their standard of living to go up,” he said.</p><p>A ten-point <a href="http://news.abs-cbn.com/business/06/19/16/duterte-to-pitch-road-map-to-businessmen" target="_blank">economic agenda</a> presented to business leaders here also includes increasing support for agriculture, overhauling the country’s decrepit infrastructure and easing restrictions on foreign ownership of business. </p><p>Duterte is also planning to shift the country’s form of government to a federal-parliamentary system, from the current unitary-presidential set-up, to further ensure that power and resources are devolved to the provinces.</p><p>LAST HOPE</p><div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/news-special1/nation/06/29/062916-trikedriver.jpg"/><figcaption><div class="embed-desc">Al Sambulot rides his tricycle in a Davao City slum area.<em> Dharel Placido/ABS-CBN News</em></div></figcaption></figure></div><p>For tricycle driver Al Sambulot, Duterte may be his last ticket out of poverty. His wife works as a maid in Kuwait, leaving him to take care of their two children.</p><p>“Kung ito lang ang hanapbuhay ko, hanggang high school lang siguro ang anak ko,” he told ABS-CBN News, as he waited for passengers on a street corner near his house.</p><p>If his children drop out of school, Sambulot said they could end up as maids like their mother.</p><p>Like his neighbors, Sambulot does not own the land where his house stands and is counting on government for permanent housing.</p><p>“Yung mahirap, palaging mahirap,” he said,</p>

DAVAO CITY - Single mother Maricar Chatto has not seen her life in the slums improve despite shuffling between jobs here and abroad, but she hopes to finally feel the gains of a robust economy once President-elect Rodrigo Duterte assumes office on Thursday.

Growth that lifts the poor is Duterte’s economic challenge

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Growth that lifts the poor is Duterte’s economic challenge

Dharel Placido and Joel Guinto,

ABS-CBN News

Published June 30, 2016 03:00 AM PHT

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Rodrigo Duterte

economy

poverty

Davao City

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