NSO: 1.2m households do not have electricity

More than 1.2 million Filipino families, representing two in every five households, do not have electricity in their homes. One in five families also has no access to safe water supply.

These are among the results of the 2007 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey, which were released by the National Statistics Office over the weekend. The survey provides social, economic and demographic data on Filipino families which have been correlated with poverty.

Despite the alarming results, the government reported gains of the Arroyo administration in addressing poverty.

Citing a preliminary report from the National Nutrition Council, Secretary Domingo Panganiban, who heads the National-Anti Poverty Commission, said the families of some 1.8 million public school children from Grade 1 to Grade 3 had received rations of rice under the Food for School Program of the Department of Education for school year 2008 to 2009.

“The families of another 499,548 children in daycare centers, meanwhile, received rations of rice under the daycare rice distribution program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development,” Panganiban said.

The NSO survey, however, showed that many families still do not have access to basic services such as electricity and water. About 38 percent of families in the bottom 30-percent income stratum, representing the poor, do not have electricity in their homes compared with 6.5 percent among families in the upper 70-percent income stratum.

At the national level, around 16 percent of all families do not have electricity. Regions with highest percentages of families without electricity are Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (36.5 percent), Mimaropa (35.4 percent) and Zamboanga Peninsula (35.4 percent). Mimaropa groups the provinces of Occidental and Oriental Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan.

Only 83 percent of the Filipino families have access to a safe source of water supply. Considered as clean and safe sources of water supply are community water system and protected well.  –Roderick T. dela Cruz, Manila Standard Today