Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
A variety of crops from hinterland barangay of Guihulngan City, Negros Oriental, is displayed at an agri-fair in July 2022. Yet, the Central Visayan region has the highest number of poor among the country’s 17 regions. Photo from Lag-asan Elementary School in Guihulngan City.
THE Philippine Statistics Office's 2021 full-year survey on poverty, released two weeks ago, showed that official poverty incidence among the population increased from 16.7 percent in 2015 to 18.1 percent in 2021. This means that about 20 million Filipinos are officially poor. Note that the full-year result is several percentage points lower than what appeared in the first semester report.