POVERTY INCIDENCE | Number of poor Filipinos rises to almost 20 million in 2021

POVERTY INCIDENCE | Number of poor Filipinos rises to almost 20 million in 2021 – PSA report

August 15, 2022 , 03:40 PM

By Beatrice Puente

(August 15, 2022) – Nearly 20 million Filipinos fall under the poor population as the poverty incidence rose to 18.1 percent last year, state statisticians said in the latest poverty report released on Monday.

Undersecretary Dennis Mapa of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said the figure for 2021 was higher than the 16.7 percent tallied in 2018. Back then, some 17.67 million Filipinos were considered poor. The PSA releases official poverty statistics every three years.

Poverty incidence among families increased from 12.1 percent in 2018 to 13.2 percent in 2021. With this, the total number of poor families across the country rose by 500,000 in three years to reach 3.5 million.

“The average family income needed to meet the minimum basic food and non-food needs of a family with five members in 2021 was estimated at P12,030 per month. This amount is also called the poverty threshold,” read a portion of the 2021 Official Poverty Statistics of the Philippines.

Of this amount, a family of five would need P8,379 for their monthly food allocation. But not all families are able to set aside the necessary amount to meet their needs. Around 5.9% of the population or over 6.5 million people are considered food-poor, as of 2021, according to the report.

Meanwhile, Mapa said the average per capita income rose from P69,689 in 2018 to P72,340 in 2021, tallying a faster pace of increase at 20.9%. Many families, however, still suffered an income gap.

“On average, a poor family with five members need an additional monthly income of about P2,719 to move out of poverty in 2021,” added the report, noting that the income gap was pegged at 22.6 percent.

Metro Manila, the country’s capital, recorded the lowest poverty incidence at 3.5 percent with a poverty threshold of P32,978. Meanwhile, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao had the highest poverty incidence at 37.2 percent, although it decreased by almost 40 percent from 2018.

In a recent survey, the Social Weather Stations said 12.2 million Filipinos felt poor in the second quarter, reflecting a self-rated poverty of 48 percent. It rose by five percentage points from the first quarter.

Lawmakers and cause-oriented groups have repeatedly asked the administration to increase the subsidy provided to poor and marginalized sectors to address poverty concerns since the measly aid was not enough.

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has repeatedly spoke about his administration’s plan to bring down the poverty rate to a single digit under his administration. While critics doubt its possibility, the Department of Finance (DOF) has remained committed to this ambitious target.

“We’re not only concerned with growth per se. We’re also concerned with reducing poverty, so our target is that by the end of President Marcos’ term, poverty incidence will be down to single-digit—nine percent,” said Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno in a media briefing last July.

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