BAGUIO CITY – Poverty incidents among families in the Cordillera was pegged at 14.9 percent in 2015 which was lower by 2.6 percent compared to the 17.5 percent poverty incidents in 2012, a report from the Cordillera office of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA-CAR) stated.
In terms of magnitude, poor families in the region decreased from 65,516 in 2012 to 59,759 in 2015, the PSA-CAR report added.
PSA-CAR data showed Apayao had the highest poverty incidents among families with 30.9 percent followed by Kalinga with 30 percent.
Meanwhile, Benguet had the lowest poverty incidents among families with 2.5 percent during the period where the study was conducted by the statistics agency.
Although Apayao had the highest poverty incidence among families, the PSA-CAR disclosed the province was estimated to have the biggest drop in poverty incidence among families with 23.8 percent decrease while Ifugao dropped by 9.9 percent and Abra poverty incidents decreased by 7.3 percent.
On the other hand, Kalinga posted the highest increase in poverty incidence among families from 20.9 percent in 2012 to 30 percent in 2015 while Mountain Province also increased in poverty incidence from 27.9 percent to 29.5 percent.
The PSA-CAR claimed the magnitude of poor families was estimated to be highest in Kalinga with 12,884 families, Abra came next with 12,400 poor families followed by Mountain Province with 11,615 and ifugao with 11,133. The least number of poor families was estimated to be in Benguet with 4,783 poor families and Apayao with 6,945 families.
Further, the PSA-CAR oted the subsistence incidence among families in the region dropped by 2.3 percent from 7.1 percent in 2012 to 4.8 percent in 2015.
In terms of number, the PSA-CAR explained subsistence poor or food poor families was estimated at 19,200 in 2015 which was lower than the estimated 26,496 subsistence poor families in 2012.
Ifugao had the highest subsistence incidence among families with 12.8 percent followed by Kalinga with 11.2 percent and Apayao with 9.3 percent. Benguet recorded the lowest subsistence incidence among poor families with 0.3 percent in 2015 which was lower than the 0.5 percent estimated substance families three years ago while Apayao followed with 4.9 percent, lower by 23 percent compared to the 27.9 percent subsistence families in 2012.
The PSA-CAR claimed the subsistence incidence among families in the provinces decreased, except for Kalinga which increased from 8.8 percent in 2012 to 11.2 percent in 2015 while in the same year, Ifugao recorded the highest number of subsistence poor families with 5,445 followed by Kalinga with 4,833, Mountain Province with 3,613, Apayao with 3,043 and Abra with 1,610 families. Benguet had the least subsistence poor families with only 656 food poor families.
At the same time, the poverty threshold of the region for 2015 was estimated at P21,770 per capita per anum which trnsaltes to a minimum of P9,071 monthly take home income for a family of five to meet both basic food and non-food needs and be considered not poor in the said year.
Mountain Province had the highest poverty threshold among the provinces in the region with P23,620 per capital per anum in 2015 followed by Ifugao with P22,673. And the said poverty thresholds are above the region’s poverty threshold by 8.5 percent for Mountain Province and 4.1 percent for Ifugao.
In a related development, Kalinga recorded the highest increase in poverty threshold among the provinces with 18 percent increase from P17,342 in 2012 to P20,468 in 2015 while Abra had the lowest increase with 7.4 percent from P19,775 in 2012 to P21,240 in 2015.
Although it had the highest increase in poverty threshold, Kalinga still had the lowest per capita poverty threshold in 2015 followed by Apayao with P20,947 per capita per anum.
By HENT
