Juan's Problem

It was 5 in the morning of January 28 when I tuned in Myx, a Filipino music channel featuring various music videos from different genres both popular and not and some from the late 1990s. The show Take5 features Gloc-9’s popular songs that morning. Some of it touches my heart especially when I heard the songs that tell a story about poverty and Filipinos going abroad seeking for an opportunity that is not clearly visible in our country.
Understanding why poverty exist is not that easy. Social scientists dig deeper to the root cause of it. Some researchers believed that poverty may have a root cause from the country’s history, culture and foreign relations.
Unemployment is one of the main factors of poverty in the country. In 2009, National Capital Region (NCR) carries about 7 percent of the country’s total population, according from the data gathered by the National Statistical Coordination Board. In the same juncture, approximately 4 out of 10 poor individuals are unemployed in Luzon. In the second quarter of 2012, approximately 10.9 million individuals are unemployed, according to a recent survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS).
This high count of unemployment rate in our country might have caused by lack of job opportunities and willingness to work.
The songs written by Gloc-9 entitled “Wala ng Natira” is pertaining to the Filipinos going abroad, looking for better or even good opportunities in order to sustain the needs of their family. I quote,

“Napakaraming guro dito sa amin ngunit 

Bakit tila walang natira

Napakaraming nurse dito sa amin

Ngunit bakit tila walang natira 

Nagaabroad sila 

(Gusto kong yumaman4x)”

These lines directly says that people belongs to poor family most likely tend to go abroad, hoping for better opportunities that could raise them up from the ashes of poverty.  But in contrary to his other song “Bakit Hindi” wherein he tells that many people just wanted to sit and stay at home waiting for some GOs and NGOs to extend their help to them. Many of our fellowmen portrays the characteristics of Juan Taman: A young boy that waited for the fruit of Guava to fall into his mouth.

I believe that we Filipinos are great. We can surpass all kinds of problems surrounding us. But before we became as great as other developed countries, we must first develop our own identity, love of country. This is for us to get out inside the box that where we are now for us to attain our dream future.