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Missing Targets: An alternative MDG midterm report
The survey was conducted by an independent and
reputable outfit called the Social Weather Stations Inc.
(SWS) that has been tracking self-rated poverty and
hunger since the mid-80s. As of this writing, the latest
SWS December 2007 survey reported that hunger eased
to 16.2 percent of Filipino families who have experienced
involuntary hunger. This however, according to the
survey outfit is “still well over the average of 11.9 percent
in 39 quarterly surveys since mid-1998.” The steepest
recording ever of self-rated hunger of SWS stands at
21.5 percent reported in September of 2007. Nothing
could be more indicting of the Philippine government’s
difficulty of meeting MDG 1-- that of halving the
proportion of poor and hungry Filipinos with 1990
as the baseline. Indeed, it would seem that the Arroyo
administration holds the distinction of generating the
highest level of self-rated hunger, compared to previous
administrations.
And yet, surreal as it may sound, the government
continues to sing hosannas about the country’s economic
performance and confidently declares that the economy
has taken off and is on track to reaching First World status
in a number of years. It cites the relatively high growth
rates (ranging from 5 to 7 percent), the surging peso,
and the bullish stock market, among other indicators,
as evidence of the good news.
Why the massive disconnect
The disconnect can partly be explained by the fact
that economic growth per se does not automatically
translate to poverty reduction. The surging peso and
a bullish stock market have little impact on the lives of
most Filipinos. 1 What most Filipinos care about are gut
issues: food on the table, better-paying jobs, affordable
prices for basic goods and services, and government
spending on programs such as public health and basic
education, from which they will benefit. And in these
areas, there are disturbing indicators that underscore
worsening poverty and hunger in the country.
The official story on poverty
The latest government report on the midterm
status of the MDGs states that, based on current trends,
the Philippines is on track to meeting the goals of halving
the proportion of people trapped below the food
income threshold, and of halving the proportion of
people below the overall poverty threshold (this covers
both food and nonfood basic requirements).
Just recently however, the National Statistics and
Coordination Board (NSCB announced in a March 5
Press Release an important finding based on the results
of the 2006 Family Income and Expenditure Survey,
what many civil society groups have suspected all along:
that poverty has indeed worsened. According the the
NSCB, poverty incidence increased from 26.9% for
families in 2006, compared to 24.4% in 2003. According
to the same report, relative to population, 33 out
of 100 Filipinos were poor in 2006, compared to 30
in 2003. This means that government will now have
to revise its report and state that the Philippines is not
on track in achieving MDG 1.
But the report also correctly points out the disturbing
trend that most regions will not meet MDG 1 and
that the main reason the Philippines as a whole will
attain this goal is that the few regions in the country
which would meet the goals “effectively pulled down
the national averages with their low incidence rates.”
To underscore this point, Social Watch-Philippines produced
a color-coded Poverty Map in 2006 (see Figure
1) which depicts a majority of provinces and regions
with poverty incidence above the national average of
30.4 percent.
As can be noted, the map was predominantly
colored in red—red to show an area with poverty incidence
higher than the national average—highlighting
the prevalence of poverty across the country.
This reality dramatizes the high level of inequality
and imbalance within the country; that is, how only a
number of people in certain regions are living beyond
subsistence and poverty levels, and how other people,
in a greater number of regions, continue to languish
below the subsistence and poverty thresholds.
According to the same government report, we
are off-track in meeting Target 2 (of MDG 1) which
is halving the proportion of people living below the
minimum level of dietary consumption (the decline
of the number of people below the minimum level of
dietary consumption should be 1.8 percent from 2003
onwards, while actual trend showed only a 1.25-percent
decline). On the other hand, the official review
reports that we are on-track to meeting Target 3, that
1
Note: September 2007 SWS survey results: Stronger peso hurts 30% of Filipino families, helps 13%, has no effect on 57%.
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