By Dr. Tony Leachon
Poverty was never meant to be permanent. It was supposed to be a condition we could overcome through real jobs, quality education, accessible healthcare, fair wages, and opportunities that allow families to stand on their own. Yet our leaders chose another path—one that enriched themselves first, leaving the economy in disarray and the people abandoned.
The flood control program, the most corrupt in our history, has cost the nation ₱1 trillion. While communities drown, Zaldy Co frolics in Europe, shielded by power and privilege. Alleged corruption cases loom over lawmakers and even former Speaker Martin Romualdez, the president’s cousin, but accountability remains elusive.
Instead of building resilience, leaders orchestrated fiscal maneuvers that betrayed the public trust. Secretary Ralph Recto, once the poster boy for fiscal discipline, engineered the unconstitutional transfer of ₱60 billion to unprogrammed appropriations and championed regressive value-added taxes that punished the middle class. These policies widened inequality, turning the middle class into the new poor, crushed under the weight of taxes and rising costs.
Every election season, the poor are remembered only as props—handed temporary aid, photographed for campaign posters, promised salvation, then forgotten once the votes are counted. The speed of the leader determines the speed of the pack, but our leaders have chosen to crawl, dragging the nation down with them.
The poor remain trapped in survival, their dreams extinguished by systemic neglect. The middle class, once the backbone of progress, now buckles under the burden of sustaining a broken system. Poverty persists not because it is inevitable, but because it is preserved—for political gain, for patronage, for power.
A nation moves forward when leaders confront the roots of poverty, not when they exploit it. Until accountability and transparency are demanded from every candidate and cabinet member, until corruption is uprooted and justice is served, the cycle will continue.
#RelentlessForChange
Tony Leachon
CTTO
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