Research\ngroup IBON said that the government methodology to count the poor\ngrossly underestimates Philippine poverty. The recently released 2018\npoverty statistics can be taken to mean those in extreme poverty but\nIBON says that many other poor Filipinos are left out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nPhilippine Statistics Authority (PSA) explained that Republic Act\n8425 of 1997, or the Social Reform and Poverty Alleviation Act,\ndefines \u201cpoor\u201d as \u201cindividuals and families whose income fall\nbelow the poverty threshold as defined by the National Economic and\nDevelopment Authority (NEDA) and\/or cannot afford in a sustained\nmanner to provide their minimum basic needs of food, health,\neducation, housing, and other essential amenities of life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nnumber of poor are counted as the number of Filipinos whose incomes\nfall below the poverty threshold or the minimum amount needed to meet\nbasic food and non-food needs. Using official data on provincial food\nbundles and prices, the methodology first computes the subsistence\nthreshold or the minimum amount a family needs to meet basic food\nneeds. The subsistence threshold is then assumed to be 70% of the\npoverty threshold where the balance of 30% is assumed enough to meet\nbasic non-food needs. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nnumber of poor are estimated using family income data from 180,000\nsample households from the provinces and highly urbanized cities.\nFilipinos whose incomes are below the poverty threshold are those\nofficially counted as poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However,\npoverty estimates according to this methodology are unbelievably low\nand unrealistic. The monthly poverty threshold is just Php10,727 for\na family of five. This is just around Php71 per person per day at\nPhp50 for food needs and Php21 for non-food needs. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThese low standards explain\nthe reported fall in the number of poor Filipinos. Poverty incidence,\nor the percentage of poor families to total families reportedly fell\nfrom 23.3% in 2015 to only 16.6% in 2018, and the number of\nsubsistence or food poor Filipino families from 6.4 million in 2015\nto only 3.4 million in 2018. NEDA hailed government\u2019s poverty\nreduction measures for successfully getting poverty alleviation on\ntrack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIBON however said that the\nmethodology uses unrealistically low standards and is detached from\ndaily poverty realities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nfood or subsistence threshold, for instance, the group said,\nconservatively assumes a \u201cleast cost\u201d food bundle. It is\nunrealistic to expect that all families have ready access to this\nlowest-priced or cheapest food, the group argued. Moreover, the food\nbundle is based on so-called \u201crevealed preference\u201d which is\npresumably based on actual spending. Yet IBON said that this is not\nnecessarily a desirable food bundle and may just reflect the food\nthat Filipino families are forced to buy or make do with given their\npoverty or limited budget, such as the notorious pagpag<\/em>\nor recycled garbage food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These\nmean that the subsistence threshold estimated is over-optimistically\nlow and not necessarily of the needed quality for decent eating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Estimating\nnon-food expenses, meanwhile, does not take into account the actual\ncost of basic non-food items, IBON said. The cost of non-food needs\nis merely assumed to be a certain ratio to food needs. However, the\ncost of many non-food needs has been rising rapidly for instance due\nto the privatization of utilities and social services. Non-food needs\ninclude clothing and footwear; fuel, light, and water; housing\nmaintenance and other minor repairs; rental of occupied dwelling\nunits; medical care; education; transportation and communication;\nnon-durable furnishing; household operations; and personal care and\neffects. Thus, this also too conservatively assumes that non-food\nneeds are available at illusory low prices. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n IBON\nstressed that poverty has many dimensions and while income is a\nconvenient indicator this is only one of them. The current low Php71\npoverty threshold should be adjusted to be more realistic and\nreflective of the true potentials of the economy, said the group. As\nit is, PSA data indicate that around 12.4 million families or about\nhalf of the population is trying to survive on Php132 per person per\nday. On the other hand, chief executive officers of the country\u2019s\nbiggest corporations can earn the equivalent of as much as Php60,000\nor more per day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nIBON said that a more\nrealistic and higher poverty threshold will send a strong signal of\nthe government having ambitious anti-poverty targets and genuinely\nseeking to eradicate this. On the other hand, persistently low\npoverty thresholds and illusory reductions in poverty will only\nresult in persistent neglect of the needs of the many.###<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Poverty estimates according to this methodology are unbelievably low and unrealistic<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"saved","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[2048,14],"tags":[347,607,116,159,1979,165],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8855,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853\/revisions\/8855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}