Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - Between 2018 and 2021, about 2.3 million people in the Philippines fell into poverty. This was mostly du...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - Between 2018 and 2021, about 2.3 million people in the Philippines fell into poverty. This was mostly due to the pandemic's effect on the economy, which caused the economy to slow down.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) says that the number of poor people in 2021 will be 18.1% of the population, up from 16.7% in 2018. This is more than the government's goal of 15.5%-17.5%.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who just took office, wants to cut the poverty rate to 9 percent by the end of his single six-year term in 2028. Even though inflation is rising, Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan says this goal is still possible.
He said that the government's strategy will focus on fully reopening the economy, investing in human capital and social protection, and changing production sectors to make more jobs and more competitive products.
"By midterm, we can cut the number of people living in poverty by 5 percentage points, and by 2028, we can cut it by another 4 percentage points," Balisacan told a group of reporters.
The PSA puts out these statistics every three years. It says that a Filipino is poor if their per capita income is not enough to meet their basic food and non-food needs.
Balisacan said that the country had reached its goal of getting 6 million Filipinos out of poverty four years early in 2018, before the pandemic.
But COVID
He said that 19 restrictions in 2020 and the fact that poor households have had trouble getting regular, good jobs for a long time had put many Filipinos back in trouble.
