Cordillera scores high in food security, poverty fight, low in education

The Cordillera has made strides in improving the region’s poverty situation and food security, but got a poor mark in fulfilling its education targets, according to the regional director of the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB).

Aldrin Federico Bahit Jr., the NSCB official, based his disclosures on a review of the Cordillera’s success in the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

Even the task of a highly urbanized city like Baguio to provide safe water and toilets by 2015 had been ranked as slow paced by the latest MDG review, according to a report presented by Bahit during an MDG forum here on March 28.

The review also said the Cordillera lagged behind in the use of condoms, which is considered key to the goal of fighting HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infection.

Kalinga has taken the lead in improving its targets, with the high probability of achievements by 2015, compared to the rest of the upland provinces, an NSCB report said.

The three-day forum studied the problems that prevent various upland communities from fulfilling their antipoverty goals.

The primary goals are:

• Reduce poverty and hunger by 50 percent.

• Achieve universal elementary education.

• Promote gender equality.

• Reduce child mortality,

• Improve maternal health.

• Combat HIV, malaria and other diseases.

• Ensure environmental sustainability.

• Develop a global partnership for development.

The number of Cordillerans living below the poverty threshold has dropped to 22.9 percent in 2009, from 37.3 percent in 1991, and is inching closer to the 2015 target of 18.7 percent, NSCB records showed.

Bahit said each member of an average Cordillera household (with five members) should earn P16,122 a year to breach the poverty line.

The number of Cordillerans living below the food threshold (the minimum cost of food required to satisfy nutritional requirement, which is P8,873 a year) also dropped to 10.8 percent in 2009 from 22.8 percent in 1991. The regional target for 2015 is 11.4 percent.

But Bahit said the poverty gap ratio (the divide between rich and poor families) increased from 4.1 percent in 2003 to 4.8 in 2009, which is more than half of the 2.1 percent target in 2015.

Bahit ranked the improvement of Cordillera’s literacy rate for 15- to 24-year-olds as medium-paced, having reached 94.8 percent in 2008 from 88.8 percent in 1991. The 2015 target is 100 percent.

But the other educational goals are doing poorly, Bahit said.