Does anyone know of any Local Government Unit (LGU) that is already doing poverty mapping now? Perhaps some LGU officials are not aware that local poverty rate data are readily available from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and also from Wikipedia?
In other words, any barangay chairman, mayor or governor could find out what is the poverty rate in his or her jurisdiction, and set a goal as to how much he or she could lower the poverty rate after his or her term.
In my opinion, all heads of LGUs at the barangay, municipal, city and provincial levels should set their own goals, as to how much they "promise" to reduce poverty in their jurisdictions, on or before the end of their terms.
By now, we should no longer allow them to "promise" to build more roads and bridges, because that is supposed to be their regular functions anyway.
Reduction or Alleviation?
Just to be clear, I am talking about real measurable poverty reduction, and not plain and simple poverty alleviation.
As a matter of fact, many leftist organizations have already castigated the government for claiming poverty alleviation measures as part of their so called accomplishments, because that is supposed to be their job in the first place.
Believe it or not, I know of some officials, even among the National Government Agencies (NGAs) who do not even know the difference between the two.
Poverty Index
In order to make the poverty reduction claims of LGUs comparable to each other, we should only have one method or standard of measurement, and that should be no other than the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).
The MPI measure is based on lack of access or deprivation of basic goods and services. The measure is a significant departure from the old approach of inability to afford the "imaginary basket of goods".
Ideally, all LGUs in all levels should implement their own poverty mapping projects using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software.
Hazard or Tax Mapping?
That is not too difficult to do, because there are many GIS programs that are in the category of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).
If they need help in implementing GIS, I can teach their technical staff, or offer training programs for them.
By the way, the same software could also be used for hazard mapping and tax mapping, among others.
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