Poverty worsens as country grows

Economic growth has not led to gains versus poverty, with nearly a million more Filipinos joining the ranks of the impoverished from 2006 to 2009. Poverty incidence rose to 26.5% of the population from 26.4% during the period, the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) reported Tuesday, placing a commitment to significantly slash the figure at risk. Some 185,000 families, or 970,000 Filipinos, became poor, the NCSB said, even as it noted fewer households and individuals were "food-poor." The needy totalled 3.86 million families or 23.14 million individuals. A Filipino, the NSCB said, required P974 in 2009 to meet his or her monthly food needs, with the amount rising to P1,403 if the individual wanted to stay out of poverty. A family of five needed P4,869 per month to meet basic food needs and P7,017 not to be classed as impoverished. The uptick in poverty incidence was blamed on a number of events -- rice price volatility said to have begun in 2006, the 2008 global financial crisis, and natural disasters such as severe storms in 2009. The economy, however, kept growing during the period, starting at 5.3% in 2006 and gaining to 7.1% the following year. Growth slipped to 3.7% in 2008 as the financial crisis exploded and the country avoided the following year’s global downturn by managing a 1.1% expansion. Given the latest figures, NSCB secretary general Romulo A. Virola said the probability of the Philippines’ achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving poverty by 2015, from 1991’s 33.1%, had gone down. "This means that we are eight years behind our target, and in order to still meet the target of halving poverty, annual growth rate of poverty incidence should be reduced by two percentage points on the average from 2011 to 2015," Mr. Virola said. Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Cayetano W. Paderanga, Jr., however, said "there is still high hopes that we will still achieve it provided that a 7-8% economic growth target under Aquino administration is sustained." After just 1.1% growth in 2009, the economy surged by 7.3% last year, surpassing the government’s 5-6% target. The 2011 goal is 7-8%, although officials have highlighted that this year’s budget assumes a lower uptick of 5% given continued global uncertainty. In the region, only Laos (33.5%), Myanmar (32%) and Cambodia (30.1%) were worse than the Philippines in terms of poverty, Mr. Virola said. Social Welfare Secretary Corazon O. Soliman said the government was banking on further expanding the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program as a means of helping the poor. "We are actually considering to propose a higher budget for the CCT next year considering this recent development in our poverty statistics, and that of course will still be subject to further studies," Ms. Soliman said. The Aquino administration raised the program’s budget for this year to P21.9 billion from P12 billion as part of its pledge to fight poverty. Asked to comment on the latest poverty figures, University of the Philippines economist Arsenio M. Balisacan said achieving the MDG goal remained "highly probable." "With the current government thrust of improving infrastructure, the 7-8% [gross domestic product] growth target will be sustained, unless food and oil prices spike to uncontrollable levels," Mr. Balisacan said in a telephone interview. "But overall, coupled with successful CCT, I believe that we can still reach a 16% poverty incidence by 2015," he added. -- BusinessWorld