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By Darwin G. Amojelar, Senior
Reporter
The number of poor Filipino
households was expected to go up this year because of the global
economic crisis, an official of the National Statistical
Coordination Board said Thursday.
At the sidelines of the Users’
Forum on the 2006 Poverty Statistics for the Basic Sectors and the
2006 Child Development Index, Romulo Virola, the board’s secretary
general, told reporters to blame the higher poverty incidence in the
country on rising inflation and higher population growth.
“The increase in income,
especially of those in the lower-income brackets, is not as fast as
the increase in prices. So the income of the low-income classes
could not cope with inflation, therefore some of them who were
probably above the poverty line before went below the poverty
line,” he explained.
In 2006, the poverty incidence
rose to 26.9 percent compared to 24.4 percent in 2003.
Virola said that economic growth
in the past years was felt more by the higher-income classes, not by
the lower-income ones.
“It’s not automatic that when
an economy grows, poverty will be reduced,” he added.
“You need a certain level of
economic growth so that it can translate into poverty reduction.”
What’s needed
Economists earlier said that the
economy should expand by at least 7 percent annually to be able to
cut poverty incidence.
From 2003 to 2006, the
country’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth was 5.6
percent. GDP is the total value of goods and services produced in a
country in a year.
Last year, the GDP grew by only
3.8 percent from an earlier 4.6 percent; 7.1 percent from 7.2
percent in 2007; and 5.3 percent from 5.4 percent in 2006.
For this year, the economy is
expected to grow between 0.8 percent and 1.8 percent from an earlier
projection of between 3.1 percent and 4.1 percent.
Economic experts estimate that
for every 1 percent increase in GDP, the poverty incidence drops by
0.6 percent.
To reduce poverty incidence amid
the economic slowdown, Virola recommended that the government find
ways on how to increase the salary of Filipino workers.
“Since 2009 is a survey year,
it’s a challenge for decision-makers to [look for] ways on how to
increase the salary of workers,” he said. “It’s a bit
dangerous that the poverty incidence might worsen.”
The National Statistics Office is
set to conduct this year the Family Income and Expenditures Survey,
or FIES, the basis of the poverty incidence being computed by the
statistical board.
Development index
They survey is conducted every
three years, the last one in 2006.
Also, the statistical board said
that the human development index of the country’s children has
been “deteriorating” between 2003 and 2006.
The agency added that the
country’s child development index (CDI) slightly deteriorated by
0.003 points between 2000 and 2004 and by 0.050 points between 2003
and 2006.
“Also worrisome is the fact
that the number of regions that rated high in CDI, continually
decreased between 2000 and 2006,” it said. The board added that
while child development is rated “medium” in almost all regions,
except for Metro Manila, which is rated “high,” the poverty
situation shows a darker picture particularly in Visayas and
Mindanao.
The child development index
includes health, education and quality of life.
Wilfredo Nuqui, associate fellow
of the National Defense College of the Philippines, said the
situation of the children in the country is “teetering into
recession.”
The statistical board said that
poverty incidence among children rose to 40.8 percent in 2006 from
38.8 percent in 2003 and 42.5 in 2000.
A total of 14.41 Filipino
children are poor as of 2006, from 13.47 million in 2003.
“Fishermen, farmers and
children comprised the poorest three sectors in 2006 with poverty
incidences of 49.9 percent, 44 percent and 40.8 percent,
respectively,” the board said.
It added that all sectors posted
increases in poverty incidence between 2003 and 2006.
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