CHRISTIAN DUKE ONG JUNE 17, 2016

INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMICS

1:00-4:00PM FRIDAY

09351975064

12M Filipinos living in

extreme poverty

More than 26 million Filipinos remain poor with almost half, or a little more than 12 million,
living in extreme poverty and lacking the means to feed themselves, according to official
government statistics for the first semester of 2015.
The figures, however, reflect slight improvements from the same period in 2012, two years
after President Benigno Aquino III assumed power, as well as in 2009 and 2006, under the
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo presidency.
“The statistics are actually good. Yes, we can be happy about it,” said Rosemarie Edillon,
acting deputy director of the National Economic and Development Authority.
She said it was a sign that economic growth was trickling down to lower-income families,
helping bridge the wealth disparities between the rich and the poor.
The economy has been growing at an average of 6 percent under the Aquino administration.
“We have attributed this first to fast-rising incomes,” Edillon said. “The incomes of the
bottom 30 percent have actually improved the fastest. That means that inequality is actually
being reduced as well.”
Marginal declines
In the first three months of 2015, 26.3 percent of Filipinos were found to be living below the
poverty line, a measure of the minimum income required to meet basic food and nonfood
needs, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said in a briefing on Friday.
This translates to about 26.48 million Filipinos, based on the Philippine population in 2015 of
100.7 million.
In 2012, national poverty incidence stood at 27.9 percent of the population. In 2009, it was at
28.6 percent, practically unchanged from the 2006 figure three years before, of 28.8 percent.
The 2015 survey also found that 12.1 percent of the population—roughly 12.18 million
Filipinos—are living in subsistence or extreme poverty, meaning their earnings are not
enough for them to eat three square meals a day.
This, too, indicates marginal declines from the three previous years the survey had been taken.
In 2006, 14.2 percent of Filipinos lived in extreme poverty; in 2009, the number stood at 13.3
percent, and at 13.4 percent in 2012.

4Ps a big help

Edillon said the government’s 4Ps, or conditional cash transfer program, has helped a great
deal in reducing poverty, providing safety nets to families which otherwise would not have
the opportunity to send their children to school.
“As you know the 4PS program does not really intend to reduce poverty in the long term
because the amount of transfer is only about 20 percent. And for 2015, [it’s targeting] only 15
percent of people below the poverty line. It’s only pantawid (to help tide them over),” she
said.
But the program “provides social protection because it provides regularity of income stream,
so you know that month after month, you will receive this amount of cash,” she said.
Some of the poorest regions, however, appear to be in dire need of more intervention.