It’s a pretty headline that should serve the Duterte administration well, although it refers to a period before he became President of the nation of more than 100 million people: Poverty drops to 21.6% in 2015.
Official data shows “a statistically significant decrease between 2012 and 2015” in the so-called poverty incidence among Filipinos during those two years under the administration of then-President Benigno Aquino 3rd.
But a closer look at the real numbers provides an uncomfortable truth: Nearly 22 million Filipinos still remain poor and hungry. While we rejoice over the fact that there are now less people who live in poverty, from 24.156 million in 2012, we cannot just forget about the 21.811 million who still cannot afford to have proper meals and send their children to school.
The Philippines, as a nation, and our government, continue to fail miserably in the country’s goal of reducing poverty under its avowed commitments to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
In an in-depth look at poverty reduction in the Philippines, The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) took note of the fact that the government committed to reduce poverty to 16.6 percent by 2015. “This means that from 2010 to 2015, an estimated 10 million poor Filipinos must rise above poverty,” the UNDP noted.
Juxtaposed against the footnote “a statistically significant decrease between 2012 and 2015,” the numbers tell the real story. A 16.6 percent goal under the MDGs versus the actual results of 21.6 percent reflects a 5-percentage-point disparity that speaks louder than what the country’s economic managers try to convey to the people.
As early as February 2014, then-Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan has conceded that it was untenable for the Philippines to hit its poverty reduction goals. “It is already a given that we are likely to miss out on the MDG of reducing poverty to 16.6 percent next year,” he told members of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) during its general assembly.
What the country needs from the economic managers appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte is not a false sense of victory or sugarcoated statements that sweeten the bitter truth, but measurable concrete results that can withstand public scrutiny.
According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), both the poor and non-poor are confronted with various risks, and for poverty incidence to be reduced in the Philippines the government must provide an effective social protection system. “Despite the presence of various programs and responses to major risks, these have remained fragmented and there is a need for better cohesion and convergence among key agencies and programs (e.g., livelihood, hunger mitigation, and disaster preparedness programs).”
In its publication Poverty in the Philippines: Causes, Constraints, and Opportunities the ADB emphasizes the need to come up with a national strategy, as well as build local capacity and enhance the ability of national agencies to link with local government units in delivering social protection systems.
Due to the government’s limited resources, the Asian financial institution also recommended that multi-stakeholder partnerships be forged for resource mobilization.
To an extent, the Duterte administration seems to be on the right track with Ambisyon Natin 2040, which seeks to put the necessary measures in place for the Philippines to eradicate poverty among other aspirations of the Filipino.
Here is a window of opportunity for the economic managers to take the initiative and make it work. Forget about making yourselves look good in the eyes of the media. There is no need for that. As long as you do your job well and deliver results according to targets, you’ll look better than the pretty numbers people read in the papers.