Have you been to the Philippines? I have been there and visit often. My wife is from the island of Cebu and I've stayed in Manilla, Cebu, and Bohol. Comparing the poverty of the Philippines to the USA is not a fair comparison. Our poor are fat, have cell phones, cars ect..... My first visit to the country, I had a man with one arm amputated with his eye sunken into his skull begging for food. He had two small children next to him also starved. While staying in my sister-in-law's house in Cebu, there were little children who would dig in the burn pile for items to recycle. I saw countless shacks on the side of streets with entire families living in them. On the sidewalk again were these tent cities. Never in my entire life have I once witness such poverty in the USA. My wife lost three brother's to diseases when they were in their early thirties. They don't know the cause of death because lack of money for medical. I saw a man who laid in the street for hours with half his head missing from a car accident. No ambulance and no police for hours because he was a no body. Yes, I've seen tent cities here in the states and yes I've seen families living in vans and cars when the economy crashed but still doesn't compare to a country that has virtually no safety nets for its citizens.
With that being said I do agree with your overall point. The Jehovah Witnesses could do so much for these people but do very little. They want to beat on their chest when they construct a few homes that were destroyed in a storm but for those that are not members nothing.