PSA will adjust food threshold of P64 a day next year
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) will adjust the food threshold next year, confirming that the budget of P64 is "insufficient" to meet daily nutritional requirements of a person.
PSA Undersecretary Claire Dennis Mapa said the methodology used in setting the daily 64 pesos threshold for a person not to be considered as "food poor" is set for review.
"I agree 64 pesos per day is really basic. Most probably a lot of people will not be happy about it but that's how the bundle is arrived at. In other words there's science to it," he said.
"The food threshold at the national level yes it's insufficient for a lot of us, but I think the bigger question is despite the fact that this is low we have to focus on the numbers.There are still 740,000 families that are not even in earning higher than this low threshold and that is equivalent to 4.84 million Filipinos," he said.
During the briefing of the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) in Senate on Tuesday, Economic and Development Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said "as of 2023 the monthly food threshold for a family of five is 9,581 pesos that comes out about 64 pesos per person."
Balisacan noted the need to revisit the poverty threshold as he revealed that it was not reviewed for more than a decade.
"The basket has not been changed for some time, although the value of that basket has been adjusted for inflation, I think it's due for revisit our poverty threshold because it has been more than a decade since it was set... I think the changes in the economy warrant a revisit already of the threshold," he said.
Mapa said the menu set will be reviewed to make necessary adjustments by next year.
"The menu is scheduled for for revisiting you know the PSA is always updating its methodology and this is already for revision supposedly lasat 2021 but due to the pandemic, in 2021 the consumption pattern was different from the other year, we agreed already at the PSA at the technical staff preparing we will make adjustment by 2025," he said.
Mapa also presented a simulation which shows data in case the poverty threshold was adjusted to 10 percent up to 30 percent.
He noted that the poverty incidence will increase to four percentage points or 14.7 percent in case the poverty threshold increases to 10 percent and it will be 18.7 percent in case of 20 percent increase and 22.8 percent incase of 30 percent increase to poverty threshold.
Despite the increase in the threshold due to food prices, Mapa noted that the poverty incidence among the population in 2023 decreased to 15.5 from 18.1 in 2021 due to increase in income.
"I agree that the threshold might be low but if we set that threshold there is still a decrease in terms of poverty incidence and that is real 2.36 million individuals. Now the reason why we simulated the near poor lets say what if we adjust the threshold to 30 percent higher it is now about P18,000 this might be palatable already or this might be low," he said.
"If we adjust the number of individuals below this 1.3 percent of the poverty threshold the reduction is substantial. That is 36.09 million to 34.03 million. That is a reduction of 2.6 individuals that is real," he added. Robina Asido/DMS
