Can you live on 10,000 peso a month?

[David House]

As with everything the answer is "it depends". In rural areas, where food can sometimes be grown or gathered, or fish caught, 10,000 would seem more than enough. In a big city, no chance. Obviously it also depends upon the make up of the family, how many go to school or college and how disciplined they are over drinking etc. The general point though is that life has got a great deal harder for many already very poor people and it is not going to get better for a long time yet. The implications are actually pretty alarming, with a high birth rate meaning always greater mouths to feed and worldwide recession looming with fewer opportunites for OCWs as economies shrink and countries go protectionist.
I just hope the Philippine Government wake up, get their act together and actually do some of the things which are really needed. However I don't see any real prospect of that happening. Not only don't they have the answers, they don't appear to know the questions.

[andypaul]

As with everything the answer is "it depends". In rural areas, where food can sometimes be grown or gathered, or fish caught, 10,000 would seem more than enough. In a big city, no chance. Obviously it also depends upon the make up of the family, how many go to school or college and how disciplined they are over drinking etc. The general point though is that life has got a great deal harder for many already very poor people and it is not going to get better for a long time yet. The implications are actually pretty alarming, with a high birth rate meaning always greater mouths to feed and worldwide recession looming with fewer opportunites for OCWs as economies shrink and countries go protectionist.
I just hope the Philippine Government wake up, get their act together and actually do some of the things which are really needed. However I don't see any real prospect of that happening. Not only don't they have the answers, they don't appear to know the questions.

I was told by some that the Phillipines was going to enter a boom period last year, just couldn't see it myself. However much i wanted it, for the good people of the country.

A country who relies on other countries having a surplus of jobs in its market has to depend on a healthy world ecomony and have low costs at home.

The new growth industries the call centre and off shoring can also be hit if wages in the target countries drop and wages and costs increase in phill or simply the lack of demand as companies shrink or cease to exist.

Western countries will also start to encourage companies to bring back services to help prop up their own ecomonies.