Economics

PROBLEM: What kind of improvements or which among its public services do the government must focus to lessen the number of Filipino citizens experiencing poverty?

Poverty incidence among population rose from 24.9 percent in 2003 to 26.4 percent in 2006 and then inched up further to 26.5 percent in 2009. Although this aggregate poverty rate shows only a few percentage points change from 2003 to 2009, this doesn’t mean there aren’t movements in and out of poverty.

Poverty status of households was further classified into four (4) categories depending on their poverty status in each of the covered years.

* The “chronic poor” are those that are consistently income poor during the period under study.

* The “transient poor” refer to those who are classified as poor during a given point in time but were previously non-poor for at least one year during the period under study.

* The “previously poor” are those who are classified as non-poor during a given point in time but were previously poor for at least one year during the period under study.

* The “transient” and the “previously” poor are those that were moving in and out of poverty.

* Meanwhile, the “never poor” refer to those who had never been poor during the period under study.

In analyses on chronic and transient poverty, families of both groups have a common characteristics – many of them are engaged in the agricultural sector.

Among the agricultural groups, those engaged in fishery and forestry, and agricultural and animal husbandry have the highest chronic poverty rate at 25 and 29 percent, respectively. Crop growers likewise have high chronic poverty rate at 24 percent. In terms of transient poor, the households headed by those engaged in fishery and forestry has the highest rate at 25 percent. If all those who move in and out of poverty, that is summing the transient poor and previously poor, there would be 45.6 percent of households in fishery and forestry who are in need of...