Leyte hopes to bring down poverty

This will strengthen our program that aims to bring down poverty incidence and hit our goal of a single digit poverty incidence by 2022.

Leyte Governor Leopoldo Dominico Petilla.

TACLOBAN CITY — The Leyte provincial government has approved a P9.15 billion annual investment plan that hopes to propel economy in the countryside and lower poverty incidence to a single digit by 2022.

“We have increased the budget for Leyte econoMICS,” Leyte Governor Leopoldo Dominico Petilla told Daily Tribune. “This will strengthen our program that aims to bring down poverty incidence and hit our goal of a single digit poverty incidence by 2022.”

AIP constitutes the indicative yearly expenditure requirements of the province for programs, projects and activities, consisting of the annual capital expenditure and the regular operating requirements.

Of the P9.15-billion budget, P5.19 billion or 56.7 percent is allotted for economic services, P1.97 billion for social services, P1.64 billion for general public services and P332.62 million for other services.

Leyte EconoMICS, the flagship program of Petilla, is a poverty-reduction agenda focusing on “total human and economic development starting in poor barangays with the More Income in Countryside [MIC] compact farming for high-value vegetable and fruit crops,” Petilla said.