Poverty reduction still a dream

THE government is yet to make a significant headway in reducing poverty in the Philippines based on a report released by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) on Tuesday.

NSCB, an attached agency of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), revealed that poverty incidence in the Philippines has practically remained the same at 27.9 percent in the first semester of 2012.

“Comparing this with the 2006 and 2009 first-semester figures estimated at 28.8 percent and 28.6 percent, respectively, poverty remained unchanged as the computed differences are not statistically significant,” NSCB Secretary-General Jose Ramon G. Albert said.

The NSCB report noted that subsistence incidence, which represents the proportion of Filipino families in extreme poverty, was estimated at 10 percent during the first semester of 2012.

“At 10 percent in the first semester of 2009 and 10.8 percent in the first half of 2006, the differences among these three figures remain statistically insignificant,” the agency said.

In the first semester of 2012, the NSCB report indicated that a Filipino family of 5 needed P5,458 to meet basic food needs every month and P7,821 to stay above the poverty threshold every month.

The food threshold refers to the minimum income required by an individual to meet his basic food needs and satisfy the nutritional requirements set by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute. Poverty threshold is similar, NSCB said, but it incorporates basic non-food needs such as clothing, housing, transportation, health and education expenses.

Using figures for the income gap and the poverty threshold, the NSCB estimated that the total cost of poverty eradication is P79.7 billion for the first semester of 2012.

“It should be noted that the budget of the Department of Social Welfare and Development for the Conditional Cash-Transfer Program was P39.4 billion for the entirety of 2012,” Albert said.

In coming up for the first time with semestral statistics on poverty, the government said this is in line with its objective to come up with timely and reliable data that will “effectively guide policy and program design on poverty reduction.”

“Although this first-semester result on poverty incidence is not the dramatic result we wanted, we remain hopeful that, with the timely measures we are now implementing, the next rounds of poverty statistics will give much better results that will reflect the government’s massive investment in human development and poverty reduction,” Neda Director-General Arsenio M. Balisacan said.

Balisacan added that apart from focusing on infrastructure, the government is looking at implementing measures that would generate more jobs in the agriculture sector and raise the incomes of farm workers. –Jennifer A. Ng / Reporter, Businessmirror