ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the coping strategies that the Philippine poor devise for themselves, with examples from urban and rural contexts. It explores pragmatic responses to poverty and insecurity in urban and rural areas in the Philippines by interrogating specific problems, social groups and areas. This provides the context one needs to understand and evaluate policy responses at various levels of 'society', and whether the policies actually do anything meaningful in terms of moving towards well-being and security for the poor. The urban poor are discriminated against, by the rigours of the global political economy and again by a government which at worst seeks to criminalise them, and at best does not address their needs in any meaningful way. The chapter also explores the dynamic relationship between insecurity and poverty in the context of responses to socio-economic structures and processes which may undermine the potential for the security and well-being of the poor.
