"Before anything, I would like to greet my fellow students and of course our teacher, Mrs.

Nieves Salazar,
a warm and good morning. I am here standing before you now to state my opinions regarding the topic,
Philippines in poverty, who should be blamed?

First of all, I would like to define poverty. What is poverty? According to Britannica.com Poverty is the
state of one who lacks a certain relative amount of possession or money. In other words, Poverty is
being poor, Poverty is being homeless, Poverty is hunger, Poverty is being sick and not being able to see
a doctor, Poverty is not having to go to school, Poverty is not having a job, Poverty is losing a child to
illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty, Ladies and gentlemen, is a call for action- for the poor
and wealthy alike. It is a call for the world to change so that many more may have to eat, have a home, go
to school and have an equal right!

But I am not here to talk about what we should do to fight poverty, nor how do we measure poverty, and
why we are considered poor. Because we all know that it would be far off from reality that poverty would
be solved, but why? And who should we blame? Is it the government?

Poverty in the Philippines is a major obstacle to the success of the Filipinos and we can say that poverty
is a very serious problem. In fact, it is a crisis.

The National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) reported that poverty incidence in the Philippines
hits 26.5 percent in 2009. A total of 23.1 million Filipinos, about a third of ninety million populace are still
subsisting on below 2 us dollars per day, or if you will convert it to Philippine peso, less than 100 pesos
per day. This is considered the highest poverty in Southeast Asia.

I said earlier that it would be far off from reality that poverty would be solved, why? Because first, we
should identify the cause of poverty and from there it would be solved. So what do you think the cause
ladies and gentlemen? Is it overpopulation? Unemployment? Pollution? Lack of education? Poor
governance? Or is it corruption? Ladies and gentlemen all of these are the causes and who should we
blame? Who do you think we should blame? The government? Yes, certainly it is. But whose more to
blame are the citizens. Yes it is us. Every Filipino, every people are to blame and why it is us? Just
imagine if all people have proper discipline, what would our country would be? A nice, clean, peaceful
country. Who wouldn't want to see a Philippines like that? No pollution, less crime, no corruption. For
only if its people are disciplined, the politicians, the workers, professionals, students, the old ones and
even kids, this country could be developed and fight for poverty.

In my point of view, we should first start from changing ourselves before blaming others for this
countrys poverty. I certainly believe that Filipinos can fight poverty because as Bill Cosby said You can
turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can
survive it.
Thanks for hearing me out, and I hope that this speech would inspire us all to change ourselves into a
disciplined Filipino citizen and fight for poverty."