‘No frills’ meal: P7,500 monthly food budget ample for family of 5 – gov’t

MANILA, Philippines — What’s on the menu? Boiled monggo (mung beans) with malunggay (moringa), dried dilis (anchovies), banana, and boiled rice.

This, according to government officials, is one of the many samples of “no-frills” meals that a Filipino family of five can enjoy in a day with just P7, 528 average monthly budget for food.

In an economic briefing in Malacañang on Wednesday, Philippine Statistics Authority Assistant Secretary Rosalinda Bautista said a family of five only needs P10,727 to meet their monthly food and non-food requirements. In a breakdown, Bautista said a family of five will spend P7,528 for food items and P3,199 for non-food items per month.

She further said that such a budget even allows for one daily snack of either bread or a boiled root crop.

As for breakfast, Bautista said a family of five could have scrambled egg, boiled rice, and coffee with milk. And for dinner, she said, the family could feast on fried fish or boiled pork plus a vegetable dish and boiled rice.

“That is known as basic needs so no-frills. No fancy items there… I’m sure many families are subsisting with that kind of budget,” Economic  Secretary Ernesto Pernia said.

Pernia noted that poverty incidence in the country would be lower by 14 percent in 2020.

“We will have poverty incidence even lower than 14 percent by next year if we go by the rate of decline in poverty incidence,” he claimed.

The government earlier reported that the poverty incidence rate in the country dropped to 16.6 percent in 2018.

Edited by MUF/KGA