BAGUIO CITY – A scrutiny by Cost of Living, a survey entity, places an average 26,100 Philippine pesos as the monthly cost of food and other basic needs of a four-member family living in Baguio City.
However, Philippine Statistics Authority (PSAO), in its Family Income and Expenditure Survey, 2003 fourth quarter report says that to meet minimum basic food needs, a family with five – members’ region wide, will need at least 13,797 Philippines pesos per month. Repeat: that is to meet only minimum basic food needs.
Among the basic food needs included in the common Filipino household basket are rice, viand, cooking oil, sugar, salt, drinking water, coffee or tea and some condiments.
PSA was also quick to explain that a family of five is considered “poor” in that category threshold if their monthly income is below Php 13,797 to cover basic food and non-food needs.
PSA also notes “food poor” families in the country has reached 8.7 Filipinos, or those considered unable to spend more than 18 pesos and 92 centavos per meal, or twenty pesos.
In Cordillera, the Department of Social Welfare and Development – (CAR) PSA records 17 in 100 families in the highland region consider themselves poor. The regions have a total of 46,702 families who consider themselves poor and who rank themselves living below the poverty threshold whose income was not enough to cover 6.9 per cent of expenditure for basic food needs and nonfood needs.
However, CAR reflected the lowest rate among the 17 regions in the Philippines in terms of poverty incidence, with the lowest number of poor households. Abra, struck by two devastating earthquakes recently, unfortunately has the highest poverty incidence in CAR.
Nationwide, poverty incidence rose to 18.1%, affecting 19.99 million Filipinos considered poor this 2004.
In the case of Metro Manila families, the daily tab for them to maintain Spartan-like existence is to spend around PhP 42,000 per month for a family of five, without renting.
It can be remembered that previously, sometime in 2018, government economists pronounced that a Php 10,000 budget was enough for a family of 5 residing in Manila.
Such pronouncement caused an uproar in Manila that spurred former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia to rectify the error. “All hell broke loose when the pronouncement came out,” previously stated Ding Ulambat, a Metro Manila and a political observer.
Senator Grace Poe was more castigating when she said about the issue: “Only an economist who has been living under a rock will believe that a family of five can live decently on Php10,000 a month!”
“That amount will perhaps be enough if the family will go on a forced diet, live off the grid in a lean-to, forego schooling, among other deprivations, “Poe said.
She added that Php 10,000 might be applicable “fifteen years ago, adding officials who came up with that estimate should prove their thesis by staging a reality show ala Survivor where they would live on a budget of Php 10,000 a month,” in Manila or even in other places in the country.
For his part, senator Sherwin Gatchalian was more scathing when he said of the government economists: “Php 10,000 simply isn’t enough. The government’s economic managers should use more realistic benchmarks.”
At present, PSA says over 25 million Filipinos struggle to buy basic needs, including food, this matter particularly observed during the first semester of 2023, although the poverty rate decreased to 22.4% from 23.7% in the same period in 2021. This is due to insufficient income.
PSA’s preliminary 2023 First Semester Official Poverty Statistics showed about 22.4% of the nation’s population were unable to afford their basic food and non-food needs from January to June of 2023.
However, this latest poverty rate, equivalent to 25.24 million Filipinos, marks a decrease from 23.7% in the same period in 2021.
Incidence of subsistence stands at 8.7%, equivalent to approximately 9.79 million Filipino individuals unable to afford basic food requirements.
Percentage of Filipino families living below the poverty line decreased to 16.8% in the first semester of last year, from 18% two years ago, PSA notes.
Approximately, 4.51 million Filipino families earned less than Php 13,797 per month, the threshold set by the government.
As for farmers and fisher folks, PSA says nearly one in three families live below the poverty threshold, PSA further explaining that input costs for farmers have more than doubled since 2020, adding to their problems.
With the inflation rate on the upswing, even a small shift can have an outsized impact in a country like the Philippines where households spend more than half of their monthly income on food.
While the nation made progress in reducing poverty, income inequality still lingers and has only recently begun to fall. Income inequality did not begin to decline until 2012. It is still high.
Several structures contribute to persistence of inequality in the Philippines, according to the World Bank (WB). There is this persistent unequal opportunities, lack of access to tertiary education and scarcity of skills. Add inequality in returns to college education, gendered social norms and child care and spatial gaps that sustain inequality.
In the case of potential for upward mobility, WB explains that while progress has been made in expansion of access to basic services like safe drinking water, electricity and school enrollment, there still remains large dissemination that limits human development, resulting in lack of innovation and misallocation of human capital in the economy.
Also, while schooling is widely accessible, its quality and attainment vary by income group. Children from poorer households are often less likely to be enrolled and, if they are, to reach only age appropriate grade levels.
What does this mean? It means they are less likely to reach tertiary education which will severely constrain their earning potentials and prospects for going up the ladder work, in their future.
Thirdly, WB concedes that Covid-19 has somehow reversed decades of long gains in reducing poverty and inequality in the Philippines. The past pandemic broke economic momentum in 2020 and unemployment soared.
In 2021, poverty rose to 18.1%, despite large government assistance. While the economy began to spring back, recovery was rough. Prolonged loss of income took a heavy toll on the poorest households with them eating less and eventually compromising their health status.
Fourth, the shock from the Covid-19 led to a shift in the workforce to less productive sectors and occupations. Employment in wage work notably lessened and employment in agriculture rose. This trend was concentrated among the youth and least educated, suggesting an uneven recovery and widening income disparity.
Fifth, WB says the pandemic is likely to scar human capital development in the long run. Over half of households estimate that their children learned from remote learning less than half what they would have learned from face-to-face school intervention.
Such an estimate increases the proportion to 68% in poor households. Extended distance learning is expected to have reduced the learning-adjusted years of schooling by over a full year. Learning loss, coupled with de-skilling associated with prolonged unemployment could lead to sizable earning loss.
Sixth, Job polarization can increase as the nature of work changes. Between 2016 and 2021, the so-called polarization among Filipino workers’ region-wide emerged. Employment in middle-skilled plummeted while employment in both low-skilled and high-skilled occupations shot up.
This pattern may rise with the transformation of jobs brought about by Covid-19.
Lastly, WB acknowledges that governmental policy can greatly help reduce inequality. By fully supporting employment and workers, improving education access and quality, promoting exclusive rural development, strengthening social protection mechanisms and addressing inequality of opportunity will greatly lead to reduction of poverty in the Philippines.
It is for the above findings that the United Nations (UN), the WB and the Philippine government forged an initiative called “Philippine Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Project” (PMNP) aimed at addressing hunger and malnutrition in the country.
It is a 4-year project geared to work in unison with other agencies to harmonize effort in the battle against hunger and malnutrition in all regions in the Philippines. It was launched last March 2023.
The tripartite partnership takes on a “whole -of –government” approach to tackle issues related to nutrition and childhood stunting, a significant health problem in the Philippines which ranks among the ten countries with the highest number of stunted children worldwide.
PMNP was primarily created to effectively respond to the scale and complexity of malnutrition in the Philippines that was worsened by the pandemic, which requires a multi-agency and multi-sector approach to resolve, explains UN Philippines Chief Gustavo Gonzales.
The partnership is described as cutting-edge development that reflects a common team. “You have the Philippine government implementing the most important programs in the country, you have the World Bank that is providing the required resources and you have the UN s global community of knowledge,” Gonzales adds.
