Kumain ka na ba?

Any liberal would argue that it is part of our individual rights to satisfy ourselves, but sometimes, exercising our rights is in itself socially irresponsible. A friend of mine drinks beer like it’s a substitute for water. My father smokes a pack of cigarettes every day. I drink coffee and not just any coffee, I prefer Starbucks. Everyone has vice or for the lack of a better term, addiction.

I am not going to talk about the protocols of a liberal, and I also implore you not to judge me after reading a realization that dawned on me today.

For almost five years now, Starbucks Torre Lorenzo has been one of my hangout places in Taft. Baristas know me and they usually offer me the beverage I frequently buy. After buying coffee, I walked as fast as I can for GLOBDEV class. On my way, a kid approached me and said: “Ate, akin nalang yan oh!” I didn’t give him my coffee, but I gave him twenty pesos instead. He sure looked very happy and even bragged to his two friends about his twenty peso bill seconds after I gave it to him. This is a perfect manifestation of unequal income distribution.

I spend 300 pesos per day for two cups of coffee and a friend once told me that I’ll save a lot if I stop buying from Starbucks. A realization that dawned on me today is that the magnitude of poverty in the country is to the extent that my coffee budget would already mean a lot for some families who succumbed to poverty. Allow me to deconstruct.

If I would give up Starbucks for a day and finance the food expenditure of a poor family of four using my coffee budget, its members can already buy the following:

2 kilos NFA premium rice	64
1 kilo of tomatoes	25
1 kilo of mackarel scad (galunggong)	120
4 packs of noodles	28
3 medium size eggs	18
Soy sauce	18
Cooking oil (375 ML)	27
Total	300

Source: http://www.magkano.com/market

Should I stop drinking coffee to help one family at a time? I would be a hypocrite if I answer affirmatively. My example is already a testament that inequality of income distribution is ridiculously blatant in the Philippines. It is recognizable that the country is decidedly in favor of alleviating poverty; however, we must go beyond giving donations because it is not sustainable. With this premise, it is functional to leave you with James Post's (2003) theorization of what corporation can do to solve poverty that can apply to individuals like us.

He argued that we should carry the template of being a global corporate citizen (GCC) and this lies on treating the public work as important as the private work. That is to say, we should pursue our individual goals or profitability concurrent with making ourselves primary stakeholders in protecting and developing communities. He also saw the role of educators in educating people about GCC so that society can learn that public work does not necessarily be outside one's private work. Ultimately, he holds us as accountable as the government in alleviating poverty.

Clearly, the road to solving poverty and unequal income distribution is not an easy path. Until then, there is a lot to be done.

Reference:

Post, J. (2003). Global corporate citizenship: Principles to live and work by. Business Ethics Quaterly, 12(2), 143-153.