NAPC backs PSA over food poor threshold study

The National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) on Tuesday expressed its support to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in reviewing its methodologies, baselines, and metrics for determining food thresholds and calculating the number of food-poor individuals in the country whose incomes fall short of meeting their basic food requirements.

NAPC Secretary Lope Santos III said that there is a need to recalibrate targets and measurements while focusing on the 740,000 Filipino families currently classified as food-poor. He stressed that beyond mere numbers and prices, many families are at an economic disadvantage.

The NAPC also called on all stakeholders, which include national government agencies, local government units, the private sector, development partners, and basic sectors, to converge their programs and services and optimize available resources to improve the conditions of these poor families.

Updating the PSA’s metrics, according to NAPC, will ensure that the government's poverty-related initiatives are timely, accurate, and responsive, and will help poverty-reduction efforts keep in pace with inflation and other economic trends. We expect that the revised metrics will more accurately reflect the real food needs of the poor.

As it stands, the poverty incidence in the country has been on a downward trend, decreasing to 15.5 percent in 2023 from 18.1 percent in 2021.

It added that this is a clear affirmation of the Marcos administration’s approach to curbing poverty and mitigating its effects. However, statistics should match lived realities so as not to jeopardize our collective actions toward an equitable, poverty-free Bagong Pilipinas where everyone can live a life in dignity.