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By Darwin G. Amojelar Reporter
A pro-rich economic policy will
aggravate poverty and raise the number of poor Filipinos to 31.2
million by 2020, according to an Asian Development Bank (ADB) study.
In a report, “Comparing Poverty
Across Countries: The Role of Purchasing Power Parities,” the
Manila-based institution estimated a 28.7-percent poverty rate or
31.2 million poor families by 2020 given a pro-rich economic growth
program of the government.
In pro-poor growth, the ADB
projected a 21.1-percent poverty rate or 23 million poor Filipinos.
Last year, the Philippine eco-nomy,
as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) grew 7.2 percent, the
highest in 31 years. GDP refers to the total market value of final
goods and services produced within a country in a year.
In 2005, the bank projected 25.9
million people in poverty in the Philippines, referring to a state
when people subsist below the Asian poverty line of $1.35 (about
P60) a day.
The National Statistics
Coordination Board earlier reported that the number of poor
Filipinos in 2006 stood at 27.6 million or 32.9 percent of the
population.
The 2006 figure is an increase of
almost 4 million, compared to 2003 levels when the number of poor
Filipinos stood at 23.8 million.
The government aims to reduce
poverty incidence to between 17 and 20 percent by 2010.
“In Bangladesh, India,
Indonesia, Pakistan and the Philippines, our projected rates of
poverty can differ by at least 7 percentage points, depending on
whether growth is pro-poor or pro-rich,” the ADB reported.
The bank explained that its
projections for poverty are based on assumptions about the rate of
economic growth experienced by each of the countries until 2020, and
various scenarios on the distribution of household consumption
across different households.
In particular, the ADB said it
assumed that each of the 16 countries’ GDP per capita would grow
until 2020 at the same rate as registered between 1990 and 2006.
“Next, we translate our
projections of GDP per capita in 2020 into projections of mean per
capita consumption expenditures in 2020 on the assumption that each
1-percent increase in GDP per capita is associated with a
0.6-percent increase in survey-based mean per capita
expenditures—a relationship that stems from previous empirical
work,” the ADB explained.
In a “pro-rich” scenario, the
ADB assumed that the per capita consumption expenditures of the top
40 percent grow faster than the middle 20 percent, who experience
growth in per capita consumption expenditures equal to mean growth;
the per capita expenditures of the bottom 40 percent grow less than
the mean.
In a “pro-poor” scenario, the
bank assumed that only the middle 20 percent experience growth in
per capita consumption expenditures equal to mean growth. The bottom
40 percent see their per capita expenditures grow faster than the
mean, while the per capita expenditures of the top 40 percent grow
less than average.
In a “pro-rich” scenario, the
ADB projected that the poor people in Indonesia will increase to
51.5 million; 407.7 million in India; 1.8 million in Laos; 52.5
million in Bangladesh; and 1.7 million in Cambodia.
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