As the ranks of poor Filipino families swelled to 12.9 million in December, President Marcos left for Davos, Switzerland to hobnob with the world’s wealthiest nations and most successful leaders supposedly to attract investments, none of which materialized with the attendance of Presidents GMA and Pnoy.
Some 1.29 million Filipino families in Luzon, outside Metro Manila, rated themselves poor in a survey of Social Weather Station on December 10 to 14.
Against this backdrop, it is ironic that President Marcos is hobnobbing with the world’s wealthiest nations and most successful business leaders—supposedly to attract investments into the country—in Davos, Switzerland feted as the ‘cradle’ of skiing.
The 53rd World Economic Forum gathers under the theme 'Cooperation in a Fragmented World', over 2,700 leaders from government, business and civil society from January 16 to 20. So far two past Philippine presidents attended it (Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Benigno Simeon Aquino III) but their attendance did not bring anything substantial for the country in terms of investments and businesses. Membership to WEF is about CHF (Swiss Francs) 6,000 to 600,000 depending on engagement. One Swiss franc is PhP59.23 and with a plane load of delegation, this is quite a drain in our foreign exchange.
Results of the December survey showed an estimated 12.9 million Filipino families or 51 percent of families in the country considered themselves as poor, an increase from 49 percent or 12.6 million families recorded in October 2022, Inquirer reported.
The uptick in self-rated poverty was due to the increase in Luzon outside of Metro Manila, from 36 percent in October to 49 percent in December, amid decreases in Metro Manila, from 44 percent to 32 percent; in the Visayas, from 68 percent to 58 percent; and Mindanao, from 64 percent to 59 percent.
Nearly a third or 31 percent rated themselves as borderline or placed themselves on a horizontal line dividing “poor” and “not poor” in December, up from 29 percent in October, while 19 percent rated themselves as “not poor,” down from 21 percent.
2M newly-poor
Of the estimated 12.9 million self-rated poor families in the latest survey, 2 million were newly poor or those who were non-poor one to four years ago, 1.5 million were usually poor or those who were non-poor five or more years ago and 9.4 million were always poor or those who never experienced being non-poor.
The fourth quarter survey used interviews of 1,200 adult respondents nationwide and a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.5 percentage points for national percentages, plus-or-minus 5.7 percentage points each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.
The respondents were also asked, “Based on the type of food eaten by your family, where would you place your family on this card? SWS found that 34 percent of families rating themselves as food-poor, 38 percent as food borderline and 28 percent as not food-poor.
Belt-tightening
Compared to June, the percentages of food-poor, food borderline and not food-poor families did not change.
The national median self-rated poverty threshold, the amount that a family needs in a month to not be considered poor, stayed at P15,000; while the self-rated poverty gap, the amount poor families lack in monthly home expenses relative to their stated threshold, fell from P6,000 in October 2022 to P5,000 in December 2022.
“The self-rated poverty threshold, or the minimum monthly budget self-rated poor families say they need for home expenses in order not to consider themselves poor, has remained sluggish for several years despite considerable inflation. This indicates that poor families have been lowering their living standards, i.e., belt-tightening,” SWS said.
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