Eastern Visayas map. (Google image)
TACLOBAN CITY – Poverty incidence in Eastern Visayas has slightly dropped, but is still below the reduction target, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) regional office here said Friday, citing the 2021 full report.
From 30.7 percent in 2018, the poverty rate went down to 28.9 percent in 2021 or a 1.8 percent reduction.
This means that 31,200 more people in Eastern Visayas have been lifted out of poverty during a three-year period, NEDA regional director Meylene Rosales said.
“With the 28.9 percent poverty incidence among the population, we actually missed our target of 23.7 percent for the same year as indicated in our Eastern Visayas Regional Development Plan. This is understandable because of the economic slump we suffered from due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” Rosales said in a statement.
Citing data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Rosales said in the last seven years, the region’s poverty ranking among the 17 regions in the country has also been improving.
The region was the second poorest in 2015, and landed in third spot in 2018. The region went down two more notches on the poverty ladder and is now ranked fifth.
“We must sustain this poverty reduction by increasing income opportunities for every family in Eastern Visayas – even when we are still grappling with this pandemic. The economy is gradually recovering after it has reopened. This is evidenced by the 6 percent growth in the Gross Regional Domestic Product in 2021 from 2020, the first year of the pandemic,” she added.
Meanwhile, subsistence among the population in the region in 2021 was pegged at 10.4 percent, or about 10 in every 100 individuals in the region have income below the food threshold or the amount needed to buy their basic food needs.
A family of five in the region needed at least PHP7,819 monthly to meet the family’s basic food needs, which satisfies the nutritional requirements for “economically necessary and socially desirable physical activities.”
To satisfy the basic food and non-food requirements, a family of five needs PHP11,187 every month.
An increase in the prices of basic goods and services has increased the monthly income requirement from PHP10,411 in 2018.
The 2021 poverty incidence result was derived from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey, which provides data on levels of consumption by item of expenditure, as well as sources of income in cash and in kind.
The PSA regional office released the 2021 full poverty incidence report in the last week of October. (PNA)
