Aquino fails to curb poverty

More than 1 of 4 Filipinos poor – survey

Despite the unprecedented economic growth and the huge budget allotted by the government to its poverty-alleviation project, the number of poor Filipinos has not changed, according to the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB).

The board said in the first semester of 2012, poverty incidence was 27.9 percent, with more than one in four Filipinos deemed poor. Poverty incidence is the proportion of people below the poverty line to the country’s total population.

This means that the 2012 figure did not differ with the 2006 and 2009 first semester figures, pegged 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 Albert said.
The NSCB said a family of five needed P5,458 to meet basic food needs every month and P7,821 to stay above the poverty threshold.

The census agency said food and poverty thresholds increased by 11.1 percent from the first semester of 2009 to the first half of 2012, compared to the 26.0 percent-increase between the first semesters of 2006 and 2009.

Food threshold is the minimum income required by an individual to meet his or her basic food needs and satisfy the nutritional requirements set by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute, while remaining economically and socially productive.

The NSCB added that the subsistence incidence, or the proportion of Filipino families in extreme poverty, was estimated at 10.0 percent during the first semester of 2012.

In terms of poverty incidence among families, the statistical board estimated a rate of 22.3 percent during the first semester of 2012, and 23.4 percent and 22.9 percent during the same periods in 2006 and 2009, respectively.

The board said the government would have needed P79.7 billion to eradicate poverty in the first semester of 2012.

“This may be used as a hypothetical benchmark for the amount needed to eradicate poverty as a whole, assuming expenses are focused solely
on assistance rather than on targeting costs [such as operations and implementation[,” it emphasized.

The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao recorded the highest poverty incidence at 52.9 percent, particularly in the provinces of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur.
It was followed by Soccskargen (Region 12) at 45.8, particularly in North Cotabato and Cotabato City; Eastern Visayas (Region 8) at 45.4; Northern Mindanao (Region 10) at 43.1; and Davao Region (Region 11) at 34.5).

Metro Manila recorded a low poverty incidence of 5.4 percent, followed by Calabarzon (Region 4-A), 14.3; Central Luzon (Region 3), 15.6; and Cordillera Administrative Region, 28.7.

NSCB further said that the poverty statistics used data from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) conducted by the National Statistics Office in July 2012.

Filipinos forced to live on less than US$0.62 a day are considered poor, according to the government’s poverty threshold.

Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said under-employment in rural areas, security problems in provinces facing insurgencies and warlords, and the falling price of a number of commodities such as sugar were mainly to blame.

“If the problem of visible under-employment in agriculture is addressed, then incomes of farmers would increase, poverty incidence would decrease, and we would not be compromising food security,” Balisacan said in a statement.

The nation of about 100 million people posted 6.6 percent economic growth last year, and this year obtained its first-ever investment-grade rating from Fitch Ratings.

However, the January 2013 jobless rate stood at 7.1 percent, with a further 20.9 percent under-employed, or working fewer than 40 hours a week.

About 41.8 percent of the under-employed are in the farming sector, it said.

Norio Usui, Senior Country Economist for the Manila-based Asian Development Bank, said the government must solve the problem of jobless growth if it hoped to reduce poverty.

“I am not surprised at all. The benefits of strong economic growth have not spilled over to the people because they still cannot find a job,” he said.

He said the Philippines’ economic model depended on consumption, strong remittances from its large overseas workforce and the outsourcing industry, which employs highly educated workers.

However, the Philippines, with its weak industrial base, has stood out in the region, he added.

“Why do you need a strong industrial base? To give jobs not only to the highly educated college graduates, but also to high school graduates,” Usui said.

The government put the annual per capita poverty threshold at P9,385 (227.24 dollars).
The government allocates a huge chunk of its annual budget to the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps, under which poor families are given a stipend every month.

The conditional cash transfer program being implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development targets extremely poor families and provides P300 a month for every child. A maximum of three children can benefit under the program, or P3,000 for a school year for meeting educational expenses. The program’s health component allots P6,000 annually for each family or P500 a month.

3 more years

Malacanang however is confident that it will be able to slash poverty incidence in the next three year.

Palace deputy spokesman Abigal Valte admitted that government cannot resolve the problem overnight.

“We have three more years to keep pushing on that front because everybody wants to see those numbers go down,” she said.

The government, Valte said, is working to provide the poor with “direct interventions” such as the conditional cash transfer of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

Apart from the CCT, Valte said that the DSWD has other poverty alleviation initiatives. –Mayvelin U. Caraballo, Reporter, Manila Times with reports from Catherine Valente and AFP