[OPINION] Misdirected blame: Why the poor aren’t the problem

The observance of Labor Day last May 1, as in years past, was marked less by celebration than by organized protest. Across the country, labor unions, workers’ groups, and civil society organizations mobilized, not to commemorate a finished struggle, but to press demands that remain unresolved: higher wages, job security, and meaningful labor protection.

May 1 in the Philippines is not an end of a struggle but a continuing reckoning.

It is a reminder that workers’ rights are still being negotiated, still being contested, still being denied.

The same is true of other commemorative days: Women’s Month, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the National Day for Overcoming Extreme Poverty. These are not causes for celebration; they are acknowledgments that inequality persists, and that entire sectors of society remain structurally disadvantaged.

And yet, despite this, many, particularly within the middle class, continue to misunderstand the condition of the poor and the disadvantaged in society.

True, the frustration of the middle class is real. Taxes are high. Prices are relentless. Public services are inconsistent. It often feels like you are contributing more and receiving less in return.

But directing that frustration toward the poor is not only misplaced, it is fundamentally misleading. For millions of Filipinos, aid is not opportunism; it is survival. Programs such as 4Ps, AICS, and TUPAD do not replace work; they supplement incomes that are already insufficient. Recipients are not being dependent. They are navigating a system that offers too few viable alternatives.

Blaming the poor is easy because it is visible. You hear about cash transfers, see the ayuda lines, the hospital guarantee letters. It creates the impression that public money is simply being handed out, and that someone, somewhere, must be taking advantage.

Yet, the issue is not that the poor receive government aid. The real issue is why so many Filipinos need it in the first place; and why the systems meant to reduce that need continue to fail.

The structure of the economy itself demands closer scrutiny. In many sectors, profits rise while wages remain stagnant — pegged at minimum levels instead of approaching a living wage. Contractualization persists despite legal safeguards, while the labor market constrains competition and weakens labor’s bargaining power.

Large corporations often benefit from fiscal policies and incentives without corresponding responsibility. Tax minimization (frequently justified in the name of competitiveness) shifts the burden downward, onto ordinary taxpayers, including the very middle class that feels aggrieved.

And yet, these actors, often deeply entangled with political power, rarely become the focus of public anger.

It is easier to blame those who receive than those who extract. Easier to question the poor than to confront entrenched interests. Easier to see the line at the payout center than to trace the quieter, less visible pathways through which wealth accumulates at the top.

The middle class and the poor are not adversaries. They occupy different positions within the same economic system, separated less by principle than by degrees of vulnerability. The distance between them is narrower than it appears, and far more fragile.

A single illness, a lost job, a natural disaster — any of these can erase that distance entirely.

This is not an argument against accountability. Social programs must be transparent, targeted, and well-administered. Abuse must be addressed where it exists. But to treat aid itself as the problem is to confuse response with cause.

If there is frustration — and there should be — it must be directed where it matters.

Demand better governance. Demand transparency. Demand that public funds serve public goods. Demand accountability for those who misuse or steal them. Demand that those who benefit most from the system contribute their fair share — including serious consideration of measures such as a wealth tax on the ultra-rich.

These are harder demands to make. They are also the necessary ones.

The question is not why some Filipinos receive ayuda. The question is why, in a country of immense potential and persistent growth, so many have no choice but to need it.

Until that question is confronted honestly, and acted upon, blaming the poor will remain what it has always been: a convenient distraction from the real work of building a just society. – Rappler.com