Marcos admin confident it will bring down poverty rate to 9% by 2028

The Marcos administration is confident that it could bring down the poverty rate to 9% by 2028, National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said Tuesday.

The NEDA chief said the 9% goal by 2028 would be accomplished by bringing growth to a higher level, "enhancing the quality of growth through the creation of quality jobs and improving the social protection system, among others."

"But associated with that would be the generation of not just more jobs but higher quality jobs," Balisacan said in a meeting in Malacañang with President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. 

"And those two, growths and jobs and paying attention to social protection to address shocks like typhoons and crises… to enable us to achieve faster reduction of poverty from where it is today to single digit, at nine percent actually," he added.

The country's poverty incidence was at 18.1% in 2021, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority. This translates to 19.99 million poor Filipinos.

The 9% targeted poverty rate is part of the Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028, which sets the government’s eight-point program and contains targets and actionable plans that will help the country pursue a greener economy and more sustainable, affordable and livable residential areas in the next six years.

The other targets set under the 2022-2028 Medium-Term Fiscal Framework include:

• 6.5-7.5 % real GDP growth in 2022;
• 6.5-8% real GDP growth annually between 2023 to 2028;
• 3% national government deficit to Gross Domestic Product ratio by 2028;
• less than 60% national government debt-to-GDP ratio by 2025; and
• at least $4,256 gross national income per capita to attain upper middle­ income status.
   

—KG, GMA Integrated News