IF you had bothered to read the inside pages, you can face Monday’s blues with high spirits.

Citing last month’s SWS survey, Secretaries Edgardo D. Panganiban, head of the Luzon Urban Beltway (LUB) and Domingo F. Panganiban, head of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) stressed the Administration’s success in combating poverty and hunger in Metro Manila.

The Metro Manila survey showed that 1,200 respondents rated themselves not poor, indicating a "substantial decrease" in poverty from 54 percent to 38 percent.

"The figures say it all," Pamintuan said. "It’s the SWS that said that self-rated poverty declined by 15 points in Metro Manila last November to 39 percent this February."

In tandem, Panganiban noted a "similar sharp decrease" in the number of Metro Manila households who "felt they were not poor as far as their food was concerned."

It naturally follows: Less poverty, less hunger.

"Money is better than poverty," as Woody Allen said, "if only for financial reasons."

And that’s why President Arroyo ordered the release of a billion pesos (that’s 1 with 9 zeros) for "emergency hunger mitigation" in depressed areas of Metro Manila and in some provinces.

The most responsible interpretation of the presidential action is that it’s not enough that hunger and poverty has decreased by 15 percent in Metro Manila. More, as usual, should be done and is being done.

The irresponsible interpretation is that the largesse is timed with the elections, for it’s in the depressed areas, where soldiers are deployed to protect the Republic from restiveness, where the big votes are. That’s how GO anyway will describe it, since it’s nervous about its favorable effects for TU.

GO will ask why just now? TU will answer it’s because of the "jolting" SWS survey.

All is fair in love and war, and we have a political war along with the war against poverty and hunger. If the poor benefit even transiently, it’s still a mitigation, as in Ira Gershwin’s cheerful lyrics: "I got plenty of nuttin’ and nuttin’s plenty for me."