SPIRIT OF THE SEASON Manila’s poor, many of them homeless, line up at Liwasang Bonifacio on Sunday, a week before Christmas Day, to avail themselves of food packs being distributed courtesy of a private clinic. —RICHARD A. REYES
The number of Filipino families who rated themselves as “poor” slightly rose at the end of last year, as self-rated poverty worsened in Luzon outside Metro Manila while it fell in the rest of the country, according to a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey conducted from Dec. 10 to Dec. 14, 2022.
Results of the December survey showed an estimated 12.9 million Filipino families or 51 percent of families in the country considered themselves as poor, an increase from 49 percent or 12.6 million families recorded in October 2022.
The uptick in self-rated poverty was due to the increase in Luzon outside of Metro Manila, from 36 percent in October to 49 percent in December, amid decreases in Metro Manila, from 44 percent to 32 percent; in the Visayas, from 68 percent to 58 percent; and Mindanao, from 64 percent to 59 percent.
Nearly a third or 31 percent rated themselves as borderline or placed themselves on a horizontal line dividing “poor” and “not poor” in December, up from 29 percent in October, while 19 percent rated themselves as “not poor,” down from 21 percent.
2 million newly poor
Pinoys of the estimated 12.9 million self-rated poor families in the latest survey, 2 million were newly poor or those who were non-poor one to four years ago, 1.5 million were usually poor or those who were non-poor five or more years ago and 9.4 million were always poor or those who never experienced being non-poor.
The fourth quarter survey used interviews of 1,200 adult respondents nationwide and a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.5 percentage points for national percentages, plus-or-minus 5.7 percentage points each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.
The respondents were also asked, “Based on the type of food eaten by your family, where would you place your family on this card? SWS found that 34 percent of families rating themselves as food-poor, 38 percent as food borderline and 28 percent as not food-poor.
Belt-tightening
Compared to June, the percentages of food-poor, food borderline and not food-poor families did not change.
The national median self-rated poverty threshold, the amount that a family needs in a month to not be considered poor, stayed at P15,000; while the self-rated poverty gap, the amount poor families lack in monthly home expenses relative to their stated threshold, fell from P6,000 in October 2022 to P5,000 in December 2022.
“The self-rated poverty threshold, or the minimum monthly budget self-rated poor families say they need for home expenses in order not to consider themselves poor, has remained sluggish for several years despite considerable inflation. This indicates that poor families have been lowering their living standards, i.e., belt-tightening,” SWS said.