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Missing Targets: An alternative MDG midterm report
food and non-food requirements (e.g. clothing, fuel,
light, water, housing maintenance/rental, medical care,
education, transportation, communication. On a daily
basis, government is telling us that everyday, a person
only needs PhP27.46 for food, or about PhP9 per
person per meal, and PhP13.79 for non-food requirements,
figures which we know are “ridiculously low,”
especially for the non-food component.
Government’s latest admission of worsening poverty
is now more consistent with other indicators that
say as much (e.g., worsening indicators in the areas of
health, education, including self-rated hunger). There
are other reasons, however, to cast doubt on official
poverty statistics, especially as these claimed declining
levels of poverty incidence in the recent past. To begin
with, the comparability of the official poverty estimates
of NSCB from 1990 to 2003 is undermined by the
1992 and 2003 major changes in methodology. The
1992 method was retroactively used in the 1985 and
1988 figures, and remained in effect for the 1994, 1997
and 2000 rounds of the Family Income and Expenditure
Survey (FIES). In 2003, a methodology change
was again implemented but its retroactive application
was only up to the 1997 figures—thereby deterring
comparison with earlier data sets. 4 As such, there were
two overlapping series: one from 1985 to 2000 and
the second from 1997 to 2003. One other limitation
of the FIES is its exclusion of families without “official
and permanent residence” (the ambulant poor who live
under the bridge, squatter areas, on the streets). 5 This
has led the poor to be under-represented in the study.
Suffice it to say, the new methodology resulted in
lower poverty headcounts, and some of the trends were
changed. For example, under the old methodology, the
subsistence incidence went up by 0.5 percent which
means more hungry families. Urban poverty increased
by 2 percent. Under the new methodology, subsistence
incidence fell by 0.5 percent and there was no change
in urban poverty. 6
More important, the Asian Development Bank
pointed out in its 2005 study that sustained economic
growth from 2000-2003 has not been pro-poor. While
the Philippines did experience sustained economic
growth from 2000-2003, the results of the 2003 data
indicate a 10% drop in real average family incomes. 7
More recently, The 2006 Family Income and Expenditure
Survey (FIES) shows that despite the slight
increase of total family income by 2.6 % and the total
family expenditure by 3.6% between 2003 and 2006,
the average family income for all families fell by 2.8%
and average family expenditures fell by 0.4% during
the same period. The latest FIES also revealed that the
poorest 30% of households were spending more on food
(59% of all expenditures in 2006, compared to 49% in
2003) and consequently were cutting back on expenses
in other areas such as house rent, transportation, communication,
education, medical care, clothing, personal
care and effects, and special family occasions. 8 This
trend is disturbing as it underscores that the increasing
meagerness of incomes of poor families means
prioritizing food expenditures, with little else left to
ensure broader human development dimensions such
as education, medical care, and the like. It is ironic to
note that taxes paid by the bottom 30% significantly
increased during the same period.
This can also help explain the disconnect between
official figures that show a “growing economy” and the
public cynicism that is generated by these growth figures.
That is, that the benefits of such growth are not felt by
the poor. Actually, as the 2003 and 2006 data reveals,
average family incomes even contracted in a period of
economic growth. This is a stark example of inequality.
In the face of rising costs of living, and contracting
household incomes for many Filipinos, many civil society
groups such as the network Global Call to Action
Against Poverty (GCAP)-Philippines, have called into
question the “decline” in poverty incidence, especially
as it is based on a poverty threshold which is seen by
many as “ridiculously low,” and they contest the official
claim of declining poverty.
Finally, it is worth noting that how we define poverty
matters: who we consider as ‘poor’, how we measure poverty,
and the policy conclusions drawn are all influenced
by how we conceptualize poverty. The use of the mon-
4
Tiongson, Rhodora, Eradicating Extreme Poverty and Hunger: Will We Walk the Line, May Pera Pa Ba: Moving Forward with the Millennium Development
Goals, a Social Watch-Philippines and UNDP publication.
5
Ibid.
6
The Asian Development Bank study “Poverty in the Philippines: Income, Assets and Access”, 2005.
7
Ibid.
8
2006 Family Income and Expenditures Survey Final Results
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