Poverty and inequality in the Philippines remains a challenge.

In the past four

decades, the proportion of households living below the official poverty line has
declined slowly and unevenly and poverty reduction has been much slow. Economic
growth has gone through boom and bust cycles, and recent episodes of moderate
economic expansion have had limited impact on the poor. Great inequality across
income brackets, regions, and sectors, as well as unmanaged population growth,
are considered some of the key factors constraining poverty reduction efforts.

Causes of Poverty

The main causes of poverty in the country include the following:

low to moderate economic growth for the past 40 years;

low growth elasticity of poverty reduction;
weakness in employment generation and the quality of jobs generated;
failure to fully develop the agriculture sector;
high inflation during crisis periods;
high levels of population growth;
high and persistent levels of inequality (incomes and assets), which dampen the
positive impacts of economic expansion; and
recurrent shocks and exposure to risks such as economic crisis, conflicts, natural
disasters,and "environmental poverty."
Key Findings

The report's key findings include the following:

Economic growth did not translate into poverty reduction in recent years;
Poverty levels vary greatly by regions;
Poverty remains a mainly rural phenomenon though urban poverty is on the rise;
Poverty levels are strongly linked to educational attainment;
The poor have large families, with six or more members;
Many Filipino households remain vulnerable to shocks and risks;
Governance and institutional constraints remain in the poverty response;

There is weak local government capacity for implementing poverty reduction

programs;
Deficient targeting in various poverty programs;
There are serious resource gaps for poverty reduction and the attainment of the
MDGs by 2015;
Multidimensional responses to poverty reduction are needed; and
Further research on chronic poverty is needed.

Rural poverty in the Philippines

About half of the Philippines 88 million people live in rural areas. Poverty is most
severe and most widespread in these areas and almost 80 per cent of the countrys
poor people live there. Agriculture is the primary and often only source of income
for poor rural people, most of whom depend on subsistence farming and fishing for
their livelihoods. In general, illiteracy, unemployment and the incidence of poverty
are higher among indigenous peoples and people living in the upland areas. Overall,
more than a third of the people in the Philippines live in poverty.

The poorest of the poor are the indigenous peoples, small-scale farmers who
cultivate land received through agrarian reform, landless workers, fishers, people in
upland areas and women.

There are substantial differences in the level of poverty between the regions and
provinces and the poverty gap between urban and rural areas is widening.
Indigenous people living in highly fragile and vulnerable ecosystems, people in the
uplands of the Cordillera highlands and on Mindanao Island are among the poorest
in the country.

The causes of poverty in rural areas in the Philippines vary widely from island to
island. Among the causes of rural poverty are a decline in the productivity and
profitability of farming, smaller farm sizes and unsustainable practices that have led
to deforestation and depleted fishing waters. Rural areas lag behind in economic
growth and they have higher underemployment. This is partly because poor people
have little access to productive assets and business opportunities. They have few
non-farm income-generating activities, and people lack access to microfinance
services and affordable credit. Some vulnerable groups also face specific problems.
For example, indigenous peoples have high illiteracy rates and are affected by the

encroachment of modern technology and cultures onto traditional norms and

practices. Fishers face continuing reduction in their catches and they have few
opportunities or skills outside of fishing. Women have limited roles outside of
marketing and family responsibilities.
How We Fare: MDG target of families access to sanitary toilet facility and access to
safe water supply
Reference Number:
2015-030
Release Date:
Monday, April 20, 2015
The Philippine Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target on access to safe water
supply and access to sanitary toilet facility is to ensure that, by 2015, 86.8 percent
of the families in the country will have access to safe water supply and 83.8 percent
will have access to sanitary toilet facility.

Access to safe water supply and sanitary toilet facility are essential to good health,
clean environment, growth and development. Safe water supply and good sanitation
can prevent common waterborne diseases such as diarrhea, typhoid, etc.

According to the results of the 2014 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey (APIS), 85.5
percent of the 22.7 million families have access to safe water supply or water
coming from community water system piped into dwelling, yard or plot, public tap,
and protected well. The remaining 14.5 percent of families use unsafe source of
water from unprotected well, spring, river, pond, lake, rain water, and tanker truck
or peddler. Results show that the national MDG target is likely to be achieved by
2015, however, there are observed disparities among regions (Figure 1). Only
seven regions have proportion of families having access to safe water supply at par
or higher than the national average ranging from 84.7 to 98.9 percent, namely:
Caraga (84.7 %), Region VIII (86.5 %), NCR (90.3%), Region I (90.7 %), Region IVA
(90.9 %), Region II (96.0 %), and Region III (98.9 %).

Poverty worsening
But PH economy, governance vastly improved under PNoy Palace

Read more at http://www.mb.com.ph/poverty-worsening

The poverty level in the country continues to worsen despite the P178-billion spent
by the government under the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) from 2010
to 2014, a private survey agency said yesterday.

But Malacaang said that under President Aquinos watch, the country has vastly
improved in terms of economic development and good governance.

In a national survey conducted by Ibon Foundation in May, 2015, it showed that

seven out of 10 respondents (or about 67 percent) see themselves as poor. This
translates to about 67 million poor Filipinos.

image: http://www.mb.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/poverty-300x205.jpg

povertyThis larger figure is more consistent with the 66 million poor Filipinos earlier
calculated by Ibon, using Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) data for
2012.

Critics noted that the poverty remains massive despite the governments P78-billion
4Ps or the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program budget for 2015.

In contrast, the wealth of the 10 richest Filipinos has already more than tripled
under the Aquino administration from P630 billion in 2010 to P2.2 trillion in 2015 for
a 250 percent increase.

Ibon Foundation also noted that the governments claim that President Aquino and
Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala had already cut the number of hungry
Filipinos by half based on a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The FAO said in its 2015 State of Food Insecurity Report of the United Nations (UN)
that the country is among the 72 developing countries which have reached the
2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of halving the number of poor
inhabitants by half.

However, Ibon said the report probably failed to confirm that the countrys poverty
rate has already worsened to 25.8 percent based on the studies of human rights
group Karapatan.

It also said that the statistics used by the government are based on the individual
daily survival threshold of P52 per day. Based on these statistics, every man,
woman, and child in the country spends only P52 on food, fare, and services every
day, 365 days a year, contrary to what the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA)
report which stated that the food threshold in 2013 was P5,593 monthly for a family
of five, which zoomed to P6,125 in 2014.

The poverty threshold was even higher for the same family at P8,025 monthly in
2013 and P8,778 in 2014.

The poverty level in the country is comparable to that of Haiti and the gravity of the
situation worsened from 24.6 percent in the first semester of 2013 to 25.8 percent
by the first half of last year, the latest official statistics made available by the
Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed, Ibon said.

Meanwhile, Presidential Communications Operations Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr.

said substantial progress has been made in reducing poverty, increasing
employment, and improving the peoples quality of life under the President Aquinos
watch.

If we compare the picture presented by Vice President (Jejomar) Binay, this

contradicts the optimism of Filipinos who take pride of their skills and capacity to
the world, Coloma said.

The country has come a long way since 2010, especially in the aspect of economic
development. The growth is felt by Filipinos through improved living conditions, he
added.

Coloma said the administration was able to replace the vicious cycle of poverty,
unemployment and lack of employment with a new virtuous cycle of reduced
poverty, higher school completion rate, and more job opportunities.

The improved living conditions of Filipinos can be seen in the increase in the
acquisition of residential properties and vehicles in the country, Coloma added.

While he paints a picture of pessimism, there are many concrete manifestation of

the hope and optimism among Filipinos about their future, he said.

Last Monday, Binay used his true State of the Nation Address to hit back at the
alleged inept and callous Aquino government. Binay, who resigned from the Cabinet
last month, claimed the government failed to address poverty, hunger, and
unemployment in the past five years.

Coloma, however, said Binay had all the chance to raise his objections when he was
part of the Cabinet.

Based on Palace monitoring of feedback, he added that the overwhelming trend

was against the Vice President.

As this developed, Ibon reported that the net income of the countrys 260 listed
firms at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) rose from P438 billion in 2010 to P583
billion in 2014 for a 33-percent increase.

Records noted the net income of the countrys Top 1000 corporations grew from
P804 billion in 2010 to P1 trillion in 2013, or a 26 percent increase.

Moreover, the DAs hunger rate of 11.5 percent from 2012 to 2014 is even lower
than the 17.2 percent self-rated hunger rate in December 2014 based on a survey
by the Social Weather Stations (SWS), or the 13.5 percent for the first quarter of
2015.

Even the much-ballyhooed P15 wage increase in the National Capital Region (NCR)
could not reduce the pangs of hunger that afflict 587,000 workers who would get
P481 a day, which is not even half of the P1,088 needed to keep kith and kin
together, according to Karapatan and Ibon.

Ibon, Karapatan and the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) described the wage increase as
meaningless since the P481 daily wage is not even half of the P1,088 ($24.24)
needed for a family to meet the basic necessities of their families.

For maintaining a decent life, Ibon said a worker needs a monthly minimum wage of
P16,000 ($356), which would slash company profits by only 17.1 percent.

PSA admitted that 42.8 percent of the take-home pay of workers goes to food based
on the results of its Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES), and this means
only P4,444 for food per month, or P148 daily for a family of five, or P29.60 for each
family member per day.

All these data confirm the unjust level of wages in the Philippines, contrary to the
protests of capitalists who do not want a legislated minimum wage.

The modest food guide issued by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI)
showed that a family must have to spend P439 ($9.78) daily to be able to eat
healthy and right, with the diet consisting of rice, galunggong or round scad,
malunggay and bananas of the lakatan variety.

Read more at http://www.mb.com.ph/poverty-worsening/#7llyQlzSRJf3BCfI.99