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By Chino S. Leyco Reporter
Social and economic development
in the Philippines remains uneven and poverty continues to be
characterized by widespread disparities across regions and
population groups, a recent United Nations country team report said.
The report was presented last
week to the Philippine Development Forum in Clark, Pampanga.
Compared with other East Asian
and Southeast Asian neighbors, the report said, poverty reduction in
the country has lagged far behind that of Indonesia, Thailand,
Vietnam and China—countries that started with higher levels of
poverty incidence than the Philippines but have successfully managed
to lessen, if not virtually eliminate, extreme poverty.
According to the country team
report, there were 27.6 million poor Filipinos in 2006, a
3.8-million increase from the 2003 data. Government statistics
showed that the country’s population stood at 86 million as of
2007.
The highest poverty incidences,
estimated at four times that of Metro Manila and accounting for
one-third of the country’s total poor, are found in the Autonomous
Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Bicol, Eastern Visayas and
Western Mindanao.
“Poverty continues to be a
rural phenomenon,” the UN report said. It added that two out of
every three Filipinos live in rural areas and are dependent on
agriculture.
“Poverty incidence among
agricultural communities is roughly three times that of the rest of
the population and the sector accounts for 60 percent of total
poverty,” the country team report said.
Because of rural poverty, the
report added, migration to urban areas has made the Philippines the
fastest urbanizing country in Southeast Asia, with 55 million of its
86-million population, or 64 percent, living in urban areas. Thirty
percent of the 64 percent live in slums.
As rural poverty incidence
remains higher in absolute terms, the UN report said, urban poverty
incidence increased from 17.9 percent in 1997 to 24.9 percent in
2003. Rural poverty incidence declined from 44.4 percent to 35.3
percent during the same period.
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