Conditional cash transfer helped reduce poverty rate in 2015
Poverty incidence last year declined to 21.6 percent with a senior official of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) saying one the reasons is “ broader implementation of the conditional cash transfer program.”
“Among population, poverty incidence among Filipinos in 2015 was estimated at 21.6 percent. This translates to 21.93 million Filipinos who cannot afford to buy their basic food and non-food needs,” Lisa Grace Bersales, head of the Philippine Statistics Authority said during the press conference in Quezon City.
Bersales said 57 out of 1,000 or around 1.3 million families did not have enough income for their basic food needs.
“In terms of population, 8.1 percent of the Filipinos were estimated as subsistence poor. This is equivalent to 8.23 million Filipinos whose income is not sufficient to buy even their basic food needs,” said PSA.
In a statement, NEDA Deputy Director General Rosemarie Edillon said the poverty incidence in 2015 declined significantly from 25.2 percent in 2012 and 26.3 percent in 2009.
“We are pleased to note that this is within the target set in the Philippine Development Plan, which is 20 to 23 percent for the year,” Edillon said.
“The broader implementation of the Conditional Cash Transfer or the Pantawid Pamilya Program, which had a 194.1 percent increase in terms of budget from P21.2 billion in 2011 to P62.3 billion in 2015, recorded a 91.3 percent growth in terms of coverage from 2.3 million families in 2011 to 4.4 million household beneficiaries in 2015,” she added.
Edillon said “the regularity of the cash transfer sustained for three years for many CCT beneficiaries has accorded them some resiliency to weather certain shocks.”
“The program also induced more economic activity in the poor barangays given the presence of a cash economy. These conditions may have also encouraged a number of them to diversify their livelihood sources,” she said
Edillon said about 1.4 million less poor Filipinos were recorded in 2015 than in 2009.
“Among families, poverty incidence was also at a record-low of 16.5 percent in 2015, versus 19.7 percent in 2012 and 21.0 percent in 2006,”she said.
“Also, subsistence incidence, which measures extreme poverty, was reduced by more than half as of 2015, attaining the target of halving extreme poverty under the first Millennium Development Goal,” she added.
Bersales said based on the threshold, a family of five will need an average of 6,329 pesos per month to meet the family’s basic food needs and 9,064 pesos per month is needed to meet their minimum basic food and non-food needs
Bersales said the lowest poverty incidence among families in 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2015 continues to be in NCR, Central Luzon and Calabarzon. Provinces with the highest poverty incidence include Bukidnon, Lanao Del Sur, Maguindanao, Negros Oriental, Northern Samar, Sarangani, Sulu and Zamboanga del Norte.
She said the National Capital Region recorded the highest poverty threshold in 2015 while the lowest was from Mimaropa region.
"If a family lives in NCR, then they will need higher income in NCR compared to other regions," Bersales said.
Edillon said the decrease in poverty incidence was observed in all regions and eased disparities across regions.
“But from 2012 to 2015, the largest drop in poverty incidence was recorded in Region XI and Region XII, at 8.7 and 7.4 percentage point reduction,” she said.
“Also, for the first time, poverty incidence in CALABARZON is now at single digit level, at 9.1 percent,” she added.
Edillon added that regional data show that ARMM and Eastern Visayas posted the highest poverty incidence rates.
Edillon said the significant reduction in poverty incidence “has resulted from a generally low and stable inflation, improved incomes, and higher employment rates in the period.”
She said “even so, the rate of poverty reduction between 2012 and 2015 could have been faster, if not for the major shocks, especially the intermittent typhoons and El Nino that adversely affected agricultural production, rural incomes, and food prices.” Robina Asido/DMS
