MANILA, Philippines — Before the number of Filipinos living below the poverty threshold can be determined, officials of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said the threshold itself must be pinned down, considering food needs.
To quantify this, the PSA refers to the recommended food basket created by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) way back in 2011 to meet the daily individual nutritional requirements and the daily energy intake of 2,100 kilocalories.
PSA officials made this explanation during an interview on “The Chiefs” aired on One News channel Friday night.
The PSA earlier reported that there were fewer Filipinos living below the poverty line in the first semester of 2018.
Their pronouncement was met with mixed reactions from the public.
On the positive end, the fact that the nationwide poverty incidence fell to 21 percent in the first half of 2018 compared to 27.6 percent in the first half of 2015 was met with cheers as this happened amid faster growth in inflation and rising poverty thresholds.
This means there are now only some 23.1 million Filipinos out of the total population of around 109 million who do not have incomes that meet or surpass the poverty threshold during this period, or the minimum amount needed to meet the basic food and non-food requirements of a family of five.
Deputy National Statistician Josie Perez said that using this FNRI-recommended food basket, the PSA adjusted the prices of items in the food basket to 2018 prices to come up with the minimum amount needed by families to buy their basic food needs.
“There can, of course, be substitutes to these that have the equivalent food nutrients,” she said.
Perez said the first semester 2018 poverty survey covered 180,000 sample households nationwide, a wider sample pool compared with 45,000 sample households used in past surveys.
After the food threshold was determined, this was compared with the family and per capita incomes reflected in the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES).
Bernadette Balamban, chief statistical specialist of PSA’s poverty and human development division, said the 2018 prices for items in the food basket were determined based on the cheapest prices per region.
Following this, the availability of the P27 per kilo rice distributed by the National Food Authority (NFA) during the period was also considered.
“The per capita income is compared to the threshold. If this is lower, they are categorically tagged as poor (living below poverty threshold),” Balamban said.
Measuring the threshold for non-food needs, however, is more difficult than food needs because it does not have a recommended consumption basket.
“The difference in the way we estimate the food component from the way we estimate the non-food component is that the estimates for non-food components are indirect. We look at the consumption near the food line and it is assumed that whatever they are spending above the food line are already for basic needs,” Balamban said.
The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said this was largely because of improvements in the quality of employment in the past three years since the last poverty survey was done in 2015 as well as the expansion in government social services.
On the negative end of the opinion spectrum, the report was met with jeers by those who think the poverty threshold, now currently placed at P10,481 monthly for a family of five, is unrealistic and does not provide for an accurate reflection of poverty in the country.
Compared with the poverty threshold in the first half of 2015, only P9,453 was needed.
Considering only the income needed for basic food items that meet the recommended individual daily calorie requirement of 2,100 a family of this size would need no less than P7,337 per month. Compared with the first semester of 2015, only P6,600 was needed monthly. Per individual, this translates to P49 daily.
Based on these thresholds, 6.2 percent of Filipino families have monthly incomes that fall below the food threshold. This compares with the subsistence incident of 9.9 percent for families in the first semester of 2015.
Among individuals, 8.5 percent of the population do not have incomes to cover even the basic food requirements. This, however, was lower than 13 percent in 2015.
Methods and sources
What indeed is considered poor in the Philippines? The simplest answer to this would be: having an income level that is not enough to meet the daily minimum food requirement to physically survive and work.
This means that unlike in more developed countries, the definition of poverty in the country is more rooted in food deprivation rather than social exclusion.
Officials of PSA and NEDA have said that in essence, this methodology is meant to protect the integrity of the poverty survey by removing subjective elements such as self-rated perceptions on living standards.
“The perception of the quality of life differs from one person to another. That is why we need to have a national average poverty threshold so we can measure poverty in one standard, so we can have a clearer picture if the government’s programs are succeeding or not,” NEDA Undersecretary Adoracion Navarro said during the poverty statistics briefing on April 10.