On my way to the office one Monday morning, something caught my attention. Right by a stoplight along Roxas Boulevard, a row of five people sat on the grassy median strip (or island, as we call it in the Philippines). They all looked to be senior citizens or, at least, above middle age. Three of them carried an assortment of snacks and drinks. The other two held signs made of cardboard-like material.

When traffic stopped, the five strangers stood up and tried to get the attention of the drivers on the road. I noticed that people paid more attention to the two who were carrying cardboard signs. Those peddling snacks were largely ignored.

A thought came to me: There was nothing different between those begging for money and those selling snacks on the road. Both were hustling to get by, albeit with very different approaches.

Yet, because giving aid seems to be the kinder gesture, those who were begging got more attention. This is understandable, as not everyone on the road is thirsty or hungry enough to buy a snack while waiting for the traffic light to turn green. But there seems to be no lack of kindness to go around, enough for those begging on the streets to get ₱5 from an SUV here and ₱20 from a compact sedan there.

At the end of the day, who do you think earned more? But maybe this isn’t the right question to ask. Maybe it isn’t even a point worth considering. What is perhaps worth paying attention to is the fact that those five people had to be there on the road, struggling to get by.

This is especially worth thinking about in light of recent numbers from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), showing that the country’s poverty incidence has gone down to a single digit—9.7 percent of Filipinos are living below the poverty line. Those who peddle products on the streets and those who have nowhere else to go but beg for survival are among that 9.7 percent, which translates to roughly 11.08 million Filipinos out of a total population of 112.7 million.

These figures were not drawn from thin air. The computations are based on what the PSA has set as the minimum income required for a family of five to meet its basic food and non-food needs. This so-called poverty threshold is currently set at ₱14,634, following a formula the PSA uses that looks at how much families actually spend on food and other essential goods in a month.

Of course, a lot has been said about whether this number truly captures what it means to be poor—or not poor, if you want to look at things from a more positive perspective. Poverty, after all, cannot simply be understood as a statistic. For the five people I saw on the road, it is a reality of life. The same can be said of the 11.08 million or so Filipinos who still fall below the poverty threshold.

This does not mean, however, that reaching this statistical milestone counts for nothing. On the contrary, it serves as a positive reminder—a pat on the back, perhaps—for having managed to lift a majority of Filipinos out of poverty.

But perhaps more than simply not being statistically poor, what Filipinos need is a comfortable enough life—not a life of comfort (or an easygoing, no-frills, problem-free life), but one with reasonable comfort.

In this day and age, a reasonably comfortable life is one where basic necessities are met but with enough financial wiggle room for emergencies, as well as for the occasional online shopping or “luho” purchase. A reasonably comfortable life is one that allows parents to send their children to school, which, although technically free, is not entirely without expense. A reasonably comfortable life means having a little more than what is enough.

At the end of the day, it is not entirely up to the government to make this happen. It is a combination of efforts. But these efforts will go nowhere if the opportunities to rise out of poverty are not there. These opportunities have to be created and made available to every Filipino—from drastically improving the quality of public education and access to it, to creating better jobs by welcoming more industries into the country. All these would amount to something in the long run, allowing more Filipinos to break through the poverty threshold.

This is, however, easier said than done. But if we are to look at the examples of other countries, some of which are our own neighbors, it is doable.

Then maybe succeeding generations would no longer need to peddle products on the streets or beg from passing drivers on the roads.