More ambitious target on poverty reduction set

Slashing nationwide poverty incidence to as low as 13 percent by 2022 is “doable,” according to President Duterte’s economic managers, as the administration develops the countryside by ramping up infrastructure buildup.

Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III Wednesday said that the more ambitious target was attainable as long as the government would “work doubly hard on fleshing out programs of the 10-point socioeconomic agenda that would boost growth and generate enough jobs and livelihood opportunities nationwide as a way to raise incomes for the poor to meet their food and nonfood needs.”

At the same time, he said food prices needed to be managed so that these would not eat up income growth.

“President Duterte’s poverty-reduction target remains doable, but it will entail pursuing with greater vigor the accelerated spending on labor-intensive infrastructure to boost growth as well as on human capital formation like education and health, so poor Filipinos can have better access to quality jobs and livelihood opportunities. A drastic reduction in the country’s poverty incidence as envisioned by the President has become more challenging as this will require improving the living standards of the poorest-of-the-poor families instead of just uplifting the lives of those on the fringes of the poverty line,” according to Dominguez.

For Dominguez, the government’s focus should be on the countryside as the severely poor are mostly in rural areas.

“Our (plan) involves the development of lagging regions, where poverty is pervasive. With our focus on massive infrastructure, which will create a lot of jobs, directly and indirectly, and investment in human capital, we, the economic managers, are confident that we can reduce poverty by 1.25-1.5 percent annually,”  Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said in a text message last week.

Also, “a favorable ruling by the Supreme Court on the Reproductive Health (RH) Law will reinforce our goal to reduce poverty significantly,” Diokno added. The Duterte administration wanted full implementation of the RH law signed by former President Aquino to lessen poverty incidence arising from big families.

Last week, the government reported that poverty incidence in the country declined to 21.6 percent last year as more Filipinos gained stable and higher paying jobs during the past six years.

Philippine Statistics Authority data showed that the full-year poverty incidence in 2015 dropped from 25.2 percent in 2012, 26.3 percent in 2009 and 26.6 percent in 2006.

According to the state planning agency National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), there were 1.4 million less poor Filipinos last year than in 2009.

The poverty incidence in 2015 nonetheless translates to 21.93 million Filipinos, or about one out of every five, who still could not afford to buy basic food and nonfood items.