Poverty

MANILA, Philippines – Families of unemployed workers, especially those laid off from their jobs, are significantly suffering from hunger, according to the latest survey by pollster Social Weather Stations (SWS).

ADB compares living standards around the world   It would take nearly two centuries for the Philippines to catch up with the living standards of industrialized countries at its current pace of economic growth, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) reported Thursday.

MANILA, Philippines – Fewer Filipino families consider themselves “mahirap” or poor, according to the latest survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

Editor’s note: The first part reported that the Botika ng Barangay was not as widespread as President Gloria Arroyo recently said. The village drugstore, which is a source of affordable medicines, has yet to expand to the poorest provinces in the Philippines.

First of two parts If a minimum wage earner were to be stricken with diarrhea, relief can come cheap from the Department of Health’s Botika ng Barangay outlets, where a 2-milligram capsule of generic loperamide would cost only P1.05.  

MANILA, Philippines — Around the world, the general experience is that economic growth is accompanied by falling poverty. And nowhere has this been truer than in Asia, where data clearly show that poverty reduction associated with economic growth has actually been stronger than elsewhere in the world.

Study says poverty threshold rose MORE than two million Filipinos fell below the country’s poverty threshold because of the increases in the prices of rice and fuel, according to a government think tank.

Five million of the Philippines’ poorest families will receive cash or health-insurance benefits from the government this year, President Gloria Arroyo’s spokesman said on Friday.

Malacañang unveiled yester-day a program to double its cash handout program in the runup to next year’s national elections with 5 million Filipinos who supposedly belong to the poorest families to receive cash or health insurance benefits.

MANILA, Philippines – The number of poor people in the Asia-Pacific Region is likely to increase as a result of the economic crisis and rising unemployment, according to a United Nations survey that was released Thursday.

The National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) warned yesterday that the number of poor Filipinos might increase in the coming months after the labor department reported that up to 300,000 workers might lose their jobs in the next six months due to the global financial crisis.

About 9.4 million or 52 percent of Filipino families still consider themselves poor, the latest survey showed.

The number of families considering themselves as poor stayed at 52 percent, the same as the September 2008 figure, according to the latest Social Weather Station (SWS) survey.

MANILA- The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) will launch in the first quarter of the year a project aimed at identifying the country’s poorest families and communities.

MOST international aid assistance to the Philippines and other developing countries goes to big projects that have little to do with easing social inequities like poverty alleviation.

Fewer Filipino families now consider themselves poor, as self-rated poverty declined by seven percentage points in the latest survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS).