Global News Your Global Source of Information – Favradio
On Tuesday, several senators questioned the poverty threshold used by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) to determine the country’s poverty rate, noting that it is too low given recent increases in food prices.
According to NEDA’s data, a family is considered below the poverty line if their monthly budget falls below ₱2,775, which translates to ₱92.50 per day. This threshold is based on the minimum cost estimated by the government to meet a family’s basic needs.
The government also considers a family to be food-poor if their daily food budget is below ₱64, or just ₱21 per meal—a figure that was questioned by Senator Nancy Binay.
“That’s for three meals, right? It comes out to about ₱20 per person per meal. Do you think that amount is sufficient, ₱20?” Binay asked during a briefing of the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) on the proposed 2025 national budget.
Senator Joel Villanueva also asked NEDA if ₱92.50 per day is sufficient to meet the basic needs of a Filipino family.
“I don’t know how ₱92.50 can be enough,” Villanueva said.
In response to the senators, NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan acknowledged that there might be a need to review the government’s poverty threshold to account for inflation.
“Relative prices have changed, as we’ve seen with rice prices, where inflation has been over 20% in the past few months. So, obviously, with that alone, ₱20 per meal isn’t enough,” Balisacan said.
The poverty incidence was 15.5% in 2023, according to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, which is lower than the 18.1% recorded in 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, a Social Weather Stations survey released last month showed that 58% of Filipinos considered their families to be poor.
