Five-year poverty reduction plan eyed

THE Aquino administration will adopt a five-year poverty reduction masterplan that aims to slash the country’s poverty incidence to 24 percent by 2015, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said.

Lacierda said the draft masterplan was presented by members of the Cabinet anti-poverty cluster during Monday’s meeting with President Benigno C. Aquino III.

The Palace official said the masterplan will include both short and long-term programs, as well as poverty-reduction benchmarks for the Aquino administration.

According to Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman, the President gave the Cabinet cluster a week to submit the final masterplan.

“We have an approved framework, which basically states that we will try to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals on health, education, and poverty reduction by 2015,” Soliman said in a phone interview.

National Anti-Poverty Commission head Joel Rocamora earlier said the country is unlikely to to meet the UN MDG goal of halving poverty incidence, which currently stands at 33 percent, by 2015.

Soliman said the Aquino administration is using instead the target of the National Economic Development Authority which is to bring down poverty incidence to 24 percent by 2015. –Joyce Pangco Pañares, Manila Standard Today