Text A. Excerpt from: When family time becomes gadget time By Michele S.

Alignay, MA, RP, RGC

“I’m bored!” “It’s so hard!” “I don’t know what to do!” These are some of the most common
complaints we hear from children and teens these days. More often than not, they have
something to do with kids being weaned on gadgets at an early age. When a child starts
throwing a tantrum or begins to move up and about, the first impulse of many parents is to give
him a gadget. And just like magic, his mood changes and peace, albeit temporarily, reigns, as
the young one disconnects from the world around him and focuses on the screen before him.
The digital age and the advent of social media have indeed connected the world with a few
clicks and taps…. Yet, the advantages social media and the Digital Age bring are, ironically
enough, the very same aspects that now hamper children’s development, life-skill building, and
parent-child relationships.9 Children’s downtime is an opportune time for them to create, read,
play, and engage in countless activities people their age normally do as recent as 10 years ago.
Giving the child a gadget when boredom strikes is an ephemeral way of addressing a whim.
Growing babies are supposed to explore and use their hands and feet in order to sharpen their
senses and develop their motor skills.
Eating time ought to be a busy, messy, and happy affair replete with practical and indirect
lessons on interaction with their parents or nannies. How can we expect these normal and
“traditional” activities to transpire if we shove a gadget in front of them? Do we realize the
implications of what we’re doing? We’re compromising the fleeting time they have, which
should be used instead to help them develop themselves, as they engage with and explore the
world around them with their hands and senses. By regulating their access to gadgets, we may
sound conventional, outdated, or even mean parents. That’s okay.
When we set rules on gadgets, we should mean it. When we say to our kids to go ahead and
cry, but you can’t have gadget time, we should mean it. When we say no when our kids are
becoming too demanding, we should mean it. Buying peace by caving in to their demands for a
gadget comes with a price. I don’t want my kids and our home to be peaceful at the expense of
compromising significant aspects in their development, learning, and ability to relate to others
in the real world. But such tough-love measures are necessary if we’re to produce responsible
and well-rounded human beings. Their knowledge and familiarity with the virtual world should
be balanced with activities that would make them enjoy and appreciate real-life opportunities
to play, create, chat, express themselves, and be grateful for what they have, including the
privilege of being granted access to gadgets. Source: Alignay, M.S. (2016 Sept. 24). When family
time becomes gadget time. Manila Bulletin. Available at:
https://mb.com.ph/2016/09/24/when-family-time-becomesgadget-time/
Text B. Facing the New Challenges in the New Normal By Farida F. Layug

The language of a ‘new normal” is almost being used nowadays associated to uncertainties
brought about by the pandemic – coronavirus. But how can we live in the new reframing of our
lives when everyone was caught unaware? Who could ever think that the entire world will stop
with this microscopic thing and hold everyone to “Stay at Home”? The ‘new normal’ frame
encourages a greater understanding that we need to take so much courage and nourish our
emotions and psychological well-being. We can now also associate new normal to
precautionary measure such as face masks, PPEs, social distancing, ECQ, MECQ, GCQ, use of
digital technology, on line classes, frontliners, flatten the curve and layoffs. It is alright to accept
that things are now different and not normal. It is okay not to feel comfortable and be scared.
But we need to be thankful for each day that passes because of God’s given life. Resiliency is
what we need to have now.
According to Dyer and McGuinness in 1996, resilience describes a process whereby people
bounce back from adversity and go on with their lives. It is a dynamic process highly influenced
by protective factors. Protective factors are specific competencies that are necessary for the
process of resilience to occur. 10 Competencies are those healthy skills and abilities that the
individual can access and may occur within the individual or the interpersonal or family
environment. It is resilient people who survive various adversities, challenges, difficulties and
traumas of life. We need to be resilient now more than ever. Source: Layug, F.F. (2020 Jul 8).
Facing the new challenges in the new normal. Sun.Star Pampanga, p.10.
Text D. Excerpt from: Social Watch Philippines Position Paper on the
Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps)
We believe that the 4Ps is an important relief measure. The usefulness of such a measure needs to be
underscored in light of the fact that many poor Filipinos are desperate to survive these trying times.
Social Watch-Philippines has recently conducted a preliminary study and survey of 4Ps beneficiaries and
has found out that for many beneficiaries, this is the first time that they have experienced direct support
from government on a relatively sustained basis and are, therefore, grateful for the support.
Furthermore, investments in education and health improve the chances of children for upward social
and economic mobility.

Nevertheless, we are concerned with the current stance of government on the 4Ps which seems to treat
the 4Ps as a magic bullet for poverty reduction. Our concern is based on the following reasons:

1. The 4Ps does not address all the dimensions of poverty and vulnerability. The 4Ps program is patently
a poverty reduction program designed to address issues on maternal mortality and child mortality (the
latter mostly through the provision of vaccines and cash), as well as keep children in school for five
years. Other vulnerable groups like poor senior citizens, the chronically sick, people with disabilities, the
millions of out-ofschools, and functionally illiterate or the unemployed poor are not covered by the
program. As such, other anti-poverty programs designed to address the other dimensions of poverty
must likewise be prioritized.

2. The success of the 4Ps, which addresses the demand side, through the provision of cash grants,
requires ensuring the supply side (e.g. availability of health, education and transport facilities and
services). 4P areas are, by program definition, among the poorest. No amount of conditionalities will
work if there is a lack of schools, health clinics, and means of transport in 4P areas.12

3. “Thanks for the cash, but we need jobs.” The Social Watch study reveals that most of the beneficiaries
it surveyed expressed gratitude that with the cash grants, the health and education status of their
families were improving. Nevertheless, an overwhelming majority of beneficiaries said that what would
lift them out of poverty was access to regular employment.

4. What works in other countries may not necessarily work here. Context matters. While conditional
cash transfers (CCTs) around the world share similarities, features vary across countries, and more
importantly, the economic and social policy settings in which these CCTs are embedded in, also vary.

5. Loans for what? Finally, we question borrowing US$405 M from the World Bank and US$400 from the
ADB for the 4Ps because it not only increases our public indebtedness, which is cause for concern in
itself, but more so because the government is infusing massive investment on a strategy, as it is
currently conceived, that, at best, will have very limited impact on poverty reduction

. In this light, we call on government to do the following: Increase public spending in the various pro-
poor programs of government with stress on education, health, agriculture, housing, environment (e.g.,
see proposals of the Alternative Budget Initiative);

To come up with a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy, which includes both economic and social
policy, and locate the 4Ps within this framework. Financing for the government’s anti-poverty reduction
strategy should flow from such a framework. In the immediate, we call for an independent monitoring
and review of the 4Ps, and to include civil society participation. Part of the review is to gauge the
capacity of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to handle the further expansion
of the 4Ps. We know that the causes of poverty are complex and interlocking and based on the evidence
of other country experiences, so effectively combating it will require a combination of economic and
social development policies that require sustained economic growth, productive employment, asset
reform and comprehensive social policies which includes universal social protection measures.

For as long as the Aquino government does not have a strategy that provides a holistic perspective and
addresses the structural constraints to poverty reduction, its antipoverty efforts will remain short-term
palliatives. Source: Social Watch Philippines. (2012 Jan 14). Social Watch Philippines Position Paper on
the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps). University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City,
Philippines.