It strains a layman's understanding, the queer theory the country's chief economist is purveying, that typhoons contribute to poverty. It's a hypothesis no one has ever heard of — one that sounds anecdotal rather than factual — unless there has been a single typhoon that devastated the entire archipelago in meteorological history.

For this to be true, one must be speaking simply from one end of the fulcrum. If typhoons promote poverty, how in hell could such natural disasters not have been factored into the country's development framework as something deterrent, suppressant, or a barrier to growth? How could even one speak of a "comparative advantage" if the weather alone affords no space for it?

Recall that there used to be four members of the much-vaunted economic team. But since one left at the end of his term, only three remain of the original pack. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is now headed by Dr. Eli Remolona Jr., who replaced Dr. Felipe Medalla, the former more an academic or global banker and probably detached from the economic mess the country has been in since 1972.

The question that challenges reflection is: How can anyone indeed blame the typhoons for moving the needle in the poverty threshold? Had not six typhoons struck from June to September, would the Social Weather Stations poverty poll prove more favorable?

If we grant that the series of typhoons is grounds for 48 percent of Filipinos in the SWS survey to self-rate as poor, is it logical to conclude that each time a typhoon strikes, the poor become more stricken?  As the report bears out, the "Not poor" rose from 22 to 25 percent when they should have also plunged into the abyss.

It's a tad difficult to state in broad strokes that bad weather or typhoons create a cost to society, a further slide into poverty. The good chief economist's argument is rather unsettling for those who must think otherwise.

To theorize that typhoons drive up food prices, that in turn, make it harder for the poor to cope with the increases, and consequently rate themselves as much poorer — is a porous argument. This presupposes another tenet that the suppliers have to restrict output in order to keep food prices high.  That's akin to saying that bad weather creates new monopolies in the marketplace.

There is a need to go back to the law of supply and demand as the culprit, but is that even something in the economic or political realm that anyone could change? Typhoon or no typhoon, supply and demand runs its normal course in a free market economy.

It's much easier to dismiss typhoons as not contributory to inflation than to worsening the poverty incidence which is largely income dependent.  One wonders if the "disruptions on the supply side" ("food inflation" in the words of the economist) consequent to typhoons aggravated the case of those who considered themselves poor or borderline poor to a few notches lower.

One can only surmise that such theoretical thinking is meant to predate yet another program on top of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program called the Nationwide Food Stamp program as if 4Ps and FSP are now mutually exclusive. As the figures bear out, government must cough up P2.3 billion monthly to roll out P3,000 worth of food credits to each of 761,150 households in the program. That translates to a P27.6 billion subsidy every year.

We must instead defer to a statistician's view on the SWS poverty poll. As Dr. Mahar Mangahas said, "Evaluating the change in 'poor to borderline to not poor' is distinct from evaluating the change in poverty." Besides, nothing remotely links poverty change to any climate condition or interference.

With only a third graduated from the 4Ps and its indeterminate shelf-life, one thinks the new FSP is a mere fly in the ointment.

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