PSA pressed to focus on food-poor families
IN support of the Philippine Statistics Authority's (PSA) ongoing review of its methodologies and metrics in determining food thresholds, the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NPAC) on Wednesday raised the need to focus on the nearly 800,000 Filipino families classified as food-poor.
NAPC Secretary Lope Santos III said that PSA's ongoing review could also help calculate the number of food-poor individuals in the country whose incomes fall short of meeting their basic food requirements.
«There is a need to recalibrate targets and measurements while focusing on the 740,000 Filipino families currently classified as food-poor,» Santos told The Manila Times via Viber.
NAPC Secretary Lope Santos III«Beyond mere numbers and prices, many families are at an economic disadvantage,» he added.
All stakeholders — including national government agencies, local government units and private sector, among others — must align their programs and services to optimize available resources to improve the conditions of these poor families, the NAPC official said.
Meanwhile, the PSA said that its move to update its metrics would ensure that the government's poverty-related initiatives are timely, accurate, and responsive and will help poverty-reduction efforts keep pace with inflation and other economic trends.
Advertisement«We expect that the revised metrics will more accurately reflect the real food needs of the poor,» Santos said.
As it stands, the poverty incidence in the country has been on a downward trend, decreasing to 15.5 percent in 2023 from 18.1 percent in 2021, the NAPC said.
This is a clear affirmation of the Marcos administration's approach to curbing poverty and mitigating its effects, the NAPC said in a statement emailed to this newspaper.
«However, statistics should match lived realities so as not to jeopardize our collective actions toward an equitable, poverty-free „Bagong Pilipinas “where everyone can live a life in dignity,» it added.
AdvertisementAs the policy monitoring and advisory body for the government's poverty-related programs and policies, NAPC is mandated to facilitate harmonization and coordination of anti-poverty initiatives.
It ensures that all sectors of
