VERA FILES QUESTION & ANSWER

From NAPC Research Unit

1. What is the target poverty incidence rate for the year 2020
to 2021? What is the actual poverty incidence rate? How many
Filipinos have been pulled out of poverty in the last year?

Official figures on the actual poverty incidence rate for the year 2020
are yet to be gathered and released by the Philippine Statistics Authority
(PSA). These figures will wait a while because according to NEDA, the
next set of poverty estimates will be in 2023.

The original pre-pandemic reduction target for the year 2021 is 15.5 to
17.5 percent. As noted, however, in NEDA’s Updated Philippine
Development Plan (PDP) released in early February this year, the
substantial decline in overall poverty from 2015 to 2018 will NOT be
sustained over the period 2018 to 2021 given the impact of the COVID-
19 pandemic. Nevertheless, the initial target of 14 percent poverty
incidence by 2022 is still achievable, inasmuch as the increase in
unemployment in 2020 due to the pandemic is expected to gradually
recover beginning late 2020 and on to 2021.

From indications, it may be safe to say that many Filipinos have been
pushed into poverty instead of being pulled out of it. This, however, is a
worldwide phenomenon given the negative impacts of the Covid-19
pandemic on the world economy. According to World Bank projections,
the pandemic is likely to add 150 million to the total population of
extremely poor worldwide by 2021. Along with the rest of lower income
countries in the world, the country definitely will have its own share of
contribution to this projected number.

2. How far along is the government in its target to reduce

poverty to 11% by 2022?

Like many countries throughout the world, the country will have to re-
assess and re-calibrate its economic recovery and poverty reduction
targets given the numerous challenges presented by the still-ongoing
Covid-19 pandemic. The documents drawn up by the lead agency in
charge of economic recovery, the NEDA, particularly its Updated
Philippine Development Plan (2017-2022) and other related documents
should be consulted in this regard.

It must be noted that the original reduction target was 14 percent and
not 11 percent. The more ambitious figure of 11 percent was set by the
Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) in 2018 given the
inroads made in the previous years prior to the pandemic. This
enthusiasm is obviously no longer obtaining.

3. What are your recommendations to achieve this goal? What

are your next steps moving forward?
The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has presented many unprecedented
difficulties to many governments around the world. The intermittent
lockdowns imposed to contain fresh waves of infections have negatively
impacted struggling economies again and again anywhere. Furthermore,
the emergence of new and more transmissible variants of the virus
threatens to outpace the vaccination efforts of many countries. That
motto “no one is safe until everyone is safe” as enunciated by the UN,
WHO and other international bodies should constantly guide present
and future considerations.

On the part of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) as a policy

recommending body, it sees the implementation of the landmark
Magna Carta of the Poor (RA 11291) as the way forward in addressing
the new forms (as well as the old manifestations) of poverty in the
country. Signed into law by the President in early 2019, the Magna Carta
of the Poor mandates the State to secure, protect and promote the five
(5) basic rights of the poor to adequate food, decent work, adequate
shelter, quality and relevant education and the highest attainable
standards of health.

The NAPC had been tasked by this law to draft the Implementing Rules
and Regulations (IRR) and the National Poverty Reduction Plan (NPRP)
with the assistance of other agencies such as NEDA, DSWD and PSA. The
IRR phase has already been completed and simply awaits the official
promulgation by the Office of the President. Consequently, the NPRP
phase will begin soon after.
The significance of the Magna Carta of the Poor and the NPRP in
addressing the new and old forms of poverty cannot be overemphasized
enough. In a study discussing the impact of the pandemic which was
published last year by the leading government think-tank, the Philippine
Institute of Development Studies (PIDS), it recommended that “the
government and all Filipinos should ultimately ensure that the poor are
at the center of policy attention, especially given all the reduced
economic activities from COVID-19 and the likely undercounts of COVID-
19 infection among the poor, who do not have the luxury to seek health
care, and for whom ‘washing hands’ is also a luxury (as they have no
access to safe water and safe sanitation services).” The Magna Carta and
the NPRP will precisely do that---ensure that the poor will be at the
center of policy attention in the years to come.