Dr. Benito Teehankee
Last week, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said the poverty threshold (also known as the “poverty line”) or the average amount needed “to meet both basic food and non-food needs of a family of five in a month” during the first semester of 2018 was equal to P10,481. Using this figure, the PSA estimated the poverty incidence among Filipinos during the same period at 21 percent. This is lower by 6.6 percentage points from the poverty incidence of 27.6 percent in 2015.