SWS poverty poll not comparable with gov’t data - Balisacan

The recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey, which showed that nearly half of Filipino families have rated themselves as "poor,” is not comparable with government data, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said on Saturday.
 
In a statement released by the Office of the Press Secretary, Balisacan said that the self-rated poverty estimates as presented by the SWS in its latest report "are not comparable with the government's official poverty estimates based on Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) surveys."
 
Results of the polling firm’s survey from September 29 to October 2, 2022—the first under President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.—showed that 49% of Filipino families rated themselves poor, slightly higher than the 48% posted in June.

Meanwhile, preliminary estimates by the PSA revealed that the country's poverty incidence was at 18.1% in 2021, which translates to 19.99 million poor Filipinos, up from 17.67 million in 2018.
 
Poverty incidence is defined by the PSA as the proportion of Filipinos whose per capita income cannot sufficiently meet their individual basic food and non-food needs.
 
Balisacan said the slight increase in self-rated poverty in September compared to June was "expected, given the acceleration of inflation, particularly in food and transport" during the period.
 
In September, inflation—the rate of increase in the prices of consumer goods and services—accelerated to 6.9%, its highest level in four years, due to continued increases in food and utility costs.
 
This brought the year-to-date inflation rate to 5.1%, within the government's 4.5% to 5.5% target range for 2022.
 
Balisacan said that the increase in self-rated poverty could have been higher if not for the further opening up of the economy and the government's distribution of targeted subsidies for low-income households, public utility drivers, and the farming and fishery sectors.
 
He added that the measures implemented by the Marcos administration "helped manage the poverty level in September."
 
"Note that inflation has been coming partly from external factors, including global supply disruptions caused by the Ukraine-Russia war," he said.
 
"Moving forward, we need to speed up providing financial assistance to the poor [and] most vulnerable groups, implementing our food production enhancement programs, and executing timely food importation," Balisacan said.
 
Marcos has earlier allayed concerns about soaring inflation, noting the forecast for the Philippines is still better than other countries.
 
In an earlier statement, Balisacan explained that essential commodities and inputs for food value chains are experiencing substantial supply constraints, which he attributed to the continuing Russia-Ukraine conflict and the series of natural calamities that have dampened agricultural production in many countries, including the Philippines.
 
As a result, Balisacan said that inflation has remained persistently high globally, driven by rapid price increases in food, transportation, and energy.
 
Other Asian countries, he said, are not spared from these trends, with major economies in ASEAN, such as Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia, seeing their inflation rates accelerate in the past year, according to the National Economic and Development Authority chief.
 
However, Balisacan expects the rise in inflation to be temporary as it is expected to slow down and return to the medium-term target of 2% to 4%.
 
This outlook, he said, is borne out by the World Bank's recently released October forecast for 2022 and 2023: it expects the Philippines to grow by 6.5% in 2022, second only to Vietnam among major ASEAN economies, and by 5.8% in 2023—again faster than Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. — VBL, GMA News