Palace says long-term solutions to poverty problem underway

Malacañang said on Sunday that it is coming up with long-term solutions to solve the country’s poverty problem.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said the government is addressing the issue, citing its effort to push ‘rice tariffication’ and to lower the transportation cost of food and other goods.

Roque issued the statement following the release of the second quarter 2018 Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey that showed more Filipinos considered themselves poor compared to the results of the same survey in the first quarter.

READ: SWS: Number of families who consider themselves as poor has increased

“We are putting in place long-term solutions to significantly reduce inflation and help poor Filipino families, such as pushing for rice tariffication as rice accounts for around 20 percent of the total consumption of the poor and implementing our ‘Build, Build, Build’ program to lower the transport cost of food and goods,” Roque said in a statement.

He added that Malacañang is taking the SWS survey results seriously.

The palace spokesperson, however, said that the period when the survey was conducted should be taken into consideration.

He said at the time the survey was conducted, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) had distributed unconditional cash transfers to its 3.8 million beneficiaries.

Meanwhile, the Department of Transportation’s (DOTr) Pantawid Pasada Program for jeepney operators with valid franchises started early in July.

The latest SWS survey revealed that 11.1 million Filipino families considered themselves poor while 7.8 million Filipino families rated their food as “poor.” /ee