MARIKINA HIGH SCHOOL

JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 Introductory Paragraph

This Chapter of the study discussed the other related researches previously conducted
which is similar to the subject of this study.

It further provides the additional knowledge about what is poverty, how do poverty affect
everyone's lives, how does students handle their daily life in academic performance.

“The unemployed, the soup kitchens, the grinding poverty, and the despair”—the
worldwide consequences of the Great Depression. From the Second World War: Prelude to
Conflict (1963), a documentary by Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corporation.

"Issues like hunger, illness and thirst are both causes and effects of poverty. Not having
access to water means that you are poor, and being poor also means that you may not be able
to afford water or food either. In other words, poor health, lack of water or housing, child abuse
or violence fuel a cycle of poverty in which so many end up trapped for life."

Poverty, the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or
material possessions. Poverty is said to exist when people lack the means to satisfy their basic
needs.

In this context, the identification of poor people first requires a determination of what
constitutes basic needs. These may be defined as narrowly as “those necessary for survival” or
as broadly as “those reflecting the prevailing standard of living in the community.” The first
criterion would cover only those people near the borderline of starvation or death from
exposure; the second would extend to people whose nutrition, housing, and clothing, though
adequate to preserve life, do not measure up to those of the population as a whole.

The problem of definition is further compounded by the noneconomic connotations that

the word poverty has acquired. Poverty has been associated, for example, with poor health,
low levels of education or skills, an inability or an unwillingness to work, high rates of disruptive
or disorderly behavior, and improvidence. While these attributes have often been found to exist
with poverty, their inclusion in a definition of poverty would tend to obscure the relation
between them and the inability to provide for one’s basic needs. Whatever definition one uses,
authorities and laypersons alike commonly assume that the effects of poverty are harmful to
both individuals and society. - The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica (2020)

This research is focused in the poverty. Poverty is not having enough material possessions
or income for a person's needs. Poverty may include social, economic, and political elements.

Absolute poverty is the complete lack of the means necessary to meet basic personal
needs, such as food, clothing and shelter. The threshold at which absolute poverty is defined is
always about the same, independent of the person's permanent location or area.

On the other hand, relative poverty occurs when a person cannot meet a minimum level of
living standards, compared to others in the same time and place. Therefore, the threshold at
which relative poverty is defined varies from one country to another, or from one society to
another. For example, a person who cannot afford housing better than a small tent in an open
field would be said to live in relative poverty if almost everyone else in that area lives in modern
brick homes, but not if everyone else also lives in small tents in open fields (for example, in a
nomadic tribe).

Governments and non-governmental organizations try to reduce poverty. Providing basic

needs to people who are unable to earn a sufficient income can be hampered by constraints on
government's ability to deliver services, such as corruption, tax avoidance, debt and loan
conditionalities and by the brain drain of health care and educational professionals. Strategies
of increasing income to make basic needs more affordable typically include welfare, economic
freedoms and providing financial services. -Wikipedia (February 13, 2020)

Ever since the 1960s, the share of children affected by poverty has only got bigger and
bigger. Children are those who have the least choice and ability to change what happens to
them. There isn’t much they can do to help their families, nor should they have to. Until they
can stand firmly on their two legs, usually by the age of 6, then they can be enrolled willy-nilly
in child labor.

Nearly all possible consequences of poverty have an impact on children’ lives. Poor
infrastructures, unemployment, lack of basic services and income reflect on their lack of
education, malnutrition, violence at home and outside, child labor, diseases of all kinds,
transmitted by the family or through the environment.

One of the effects of poverty on children’s development is to lead them to build an

antisocial behavior that acts as a psychological protection against their hostile environment.
Discrimination and social exclusion often push them to more aggressiveness and less self-
control and nuance in reaction to stressful events. Having often been taken advantage of in
their early childhood, they rarely come to a constructive way to deal with conflicts.

As they grow up, these behaviors are more and more entrenched in their personalities and
often considered unrecoverable. This highlights the importance of taking action as early as
possible to improve children’s living conditions. Policymakers should understand that not just
income but a child’s social environment at large (parenting, school violence, housing, but also
sanitation, uncontaminated food and water) play a big role in creating new effects of poverty.
There is no proof that poverty, especially in cities, has an impact on the environment. On the
other hand, backward (or not so developed) technologies and an industry’s energy efficiency
(how much energy it needs to produce an amount of goods) will greatly affect the environment.
On the whole, the middle- and upper-classes lifestyles are also greatly responsible for the
depletion of natural resources and the production of (toxic) waste. Or at least lifestyles based
on over-consumption are the true responsible, which is often disregarded in public debates (as
humans it is kind of hard to resist to so much temptation). - (March 7, 2011) POVERTY
 Since 2010, reducing poverty in the Philippines has been an official objective of the
government led by Benigno Aquino and less so by the newest government but it remains a
priority. The country seems to be struggling however to maintain the healthy growth of 2010
(above 7%), which remains important to keep the country on the right path.

Official pledges vs. reality On the upside, the new government openly acknowledges the
interaction between corruption, inefficient governments and poverty in the Philippines. There’s
still to see if it will actually act on it, But the task is quite daunting: inequalities are deep and
widespread in the country.

The population keeps on growing almost too fast for the average GDP growth – i.e. the
economy should be growing faster for living standards to improve for everyone. Otherwise the
wealth created will simply “feed” the increasing population (housing, jobs, …) rather than
reduce overall poverty in the Philippines.

New anti-poverty program with fighting poverty at the center of the new government's
policy, the trendy type of social assistance known as conditional cash transfer (CCT) has been
the weapon of choice since 2008 in this war against poverty in the Philippines.

The CCT program provides cash to poor families as long as they fulfill their civic duties by
making sure they receive basic healthcare (e.g. vaccines) and send their kids to school the
whole year.

Note that money is given exclusively to the female head of the family. It seems men have a
tendency to spend money in alcohol.

Since 2008, the conditional cash transfer program has been extended to over 2 million
families, with a budget of about $450m – not that much considering the number of people
concerned by this. With the help of the international organizations including the World Bank,
almost half of impoverished families are now receiving CCTs.

Lack of infrastructure This is one of the biggest problems that both prevents the economy
from growing and makes poverty in the Philippines even worse. There’s been a dire lack of
investment in infrastructure, as much to invest in new projects as to maintain existing
infrastructure. Now it’s left to see whether the government’s plan to use public-private
partnerships will work out for the better. By letting private investors build the infrastructure (in
exchange of them charging people a fee later on), the government avoids bearing the whole
cost of building infrastructure.

However, many Filipinos increasingly resist what they see as a basic investment that the
government should make for the country, rather than making people pay for using basic
services such as bridges, roads or water supply.

What’s more, lack of accountability from the government also means that sometimes
shady deals are made between the government and a private company. On the other hand it
also means that companies aren’t too interested in investing in the Philippines because of the
lack of transparency in government deals.

Population pressure & sources of income The Philippines is a good example of how
pressured rural land is in developing countries because of an excessive population.

However, where the Philippine example stands out is that there has been a constant
decrease in rural poverty in the country.

In particular, it seems that rural Filipinos have been able to add other sources of income on
top of their usual farming activities.

A study over twenty years has shown that a shift to non-farming activities has led to higher
income and thus less in poverty in the Philippines. In return, people have invested in education
and gained new skills. In other words, human capital has increased.

This is a very obvious hint at the importance of developing and diversifying local rural
markets so they don’t just deal with farming activities and products.

Filipino farmers have been able to increase their revenue by finding extra job opportunities
in their own region. In turn, they started having fewer kids (i.e. demographic transition) which
means they could also afford sending their kids to school.

All in all, there are two critical aspects that have helped reduce rural poverty in the
Philippines: infrastructure (schools, roads, bridges) and the development of local job markets to
create to sectors and new job opportunities. -(August 8, 2013)
 POVERTY directly affects academic achievement due to the lack of resources available for
student success. Low achievement is closely correlated with lack of resources, and numerous
studies have documented the correlation between low socioeconomic status and low
achievement. Several strategies exist to assist teachers in closing the poverty achievement gap
for students. -Article in Educational Research and Reviews (July 2011)

2.2 Foreign Literature

2.3 Local Literature