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By Rommel C. Lontayao Reporter
About 6.1 million or 34 percent
of Filipino families consider themselves “poor” in terms of
food, according to a survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations
(SWS) late 2007.
The survey also showed that 34
percent consider themselves as “not poor” in terms of food,
while 32 percent of Filipino families put themselves on the “food
borderline” or “in-between.”
The SWS noted that the self-rated
food poverty ratio had been going down recently with the latest
34-percent mark a record-low.
“Self-rated food poverty has
been on a downward trend since June 2006, reaching 37 percent in
June 2007 before bouncing to 43 percent in September 2007,” the
SWS report on its November 30 to December 3, 2007, survey said.
“The latest score of 34 percent is a record-low since 35 percent
in June 2004.”
The decline in overall self-rated
food poverty was largely due to the 20-point decrease in Mindanao,
from 59 percent in September 2007 to only 39 percent before the end
of last year.
Self-rated food poverty also went
down in Metro Manila, from 33 percent to 28 percent, and the rest of
Luzon from 41 percent to 35 percent.
It remained virtually unchanged
in the Visayas, from 33 percent in the third quarter to 32 percent
in the fourth, after declining from 40 percent in the first two
quarters.
The SWS survey was conducted by
asking household heads to rate their families, either “poor,”
“not poor,” or “in-between,” based on the type of food they
eat.
Meanwhile, the SWS said the
self-rated food poverty thresholds, or the monthly food budgets that
poor households need in order not to consider themselves poor in
terms of food, “have been sluggish for several years despite
considerable inflation.”
“The failure of the thresholds
to increase despite so much inflation is a sign that the poor are
actually lowering their real living standards,” SWS reported.
According to its survey, the
median food-poverty threshold for poor households slightly went up
in Mindanao, from P3,000 in September to P4,000 in December.
It also went up in Metro Manila,
from P4,500 to P6,000, while it stayed at P3,000 in other parts of
Luzon and in the Visayas.
These levels, however, had
already been reached and surpassed several years ago.
In poor Metro Manila households
in particular, the food threshold for the poor has considerably
weakened against the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for food, which rose
by more than 30 percent from the base year of 2000.
“A declining poverty threshold,
despite a rising cost of living, means that households are lowering
their living standards, [or are] belt-tightening,” the SWS said.
It added that household heads’
ratings of their general poverty, food poverty and experience of
involuntary hunger are “internally consistent.”
During Monday’s meeting with
presidential assistants and regional directors of the National
Economic and Development Authority, officials of the National
Antipoverty Commission bared their priorities for 2008.
These include the implementation
of the Enhanced Poverty Reduction Strategy and Plan of Action for
Poverty Reduction, strengthening of basic sectors in agenda advocacy
and participation in governance, developing partnerships with civil
society and business groups, and expanding microfinance services,
among other primary objectives.
“The Arroyo administration’s
antipoverty strategies, such as improved access to human development
services, provision of better employment and livelihood
opportunities, security from violence, and institutionalized
participation of basic sectors, shall continuously be
implemented,” said Assistant Secretary Dolores Castillo of the antipoverty
commission.
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