Imaginary dialogues:
President Noynoy Aquino (P-Noy): What can the official statistics say about Philippine poverty under my administration?
The National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB): Sir, nothing yet, because the new official poverty report, issued in February 2011, referred to 2009, during the Arroyo administration.
P-Noy: Why did you reduce the official poverty line? Your new food menu is obviously downgraded in quality from the old one. By the way, you haven’t disclosed comparisons of the two menus outside Metro Manila.
NSCB: Sir, we did not really downgrade the food. Under our guideline of using the least cost of providing the needed calories and nutrients, our experts crafted a new menu cheaper than the old one, and available. The general poverty line is derived by assuming that 69 percent is for food.
P-Noy: Why don’t you compute directly for specific non-food needs?
NSCB: Sir, we don’t know of other countries that do it.
P-Noy: Do you think that an ordinary person would be as contented with the new poverty-line income as with the old poverty-line income?
NSCB: Sir, public acceptability is outside the official poverty-line system.
P-Noy: By lowering the money value of the poverty line, your experts also lowered the percentage of families officially called poor. Isn’t that window-dressing?
NSCB: Sir, the new procedure did not affect our depiction of the direction of the poverty percentage over points in time. The fact that it down-shifted the percentage level at any given moment of time doesn’t matter to us.
P-Noy: But you now estimate the poor to be 3.9 million families, whereas the National Household Targeting System, guided by the old poverty line, already lists actual names of 5.2 million poor families as prospective beneficiaries of the conditional cash transfer program. Do you propose to delist the excess 1.3 million?
NSCB: Sir, by our computation the 5.2 million corresponds to a threshold of P270 per day for five persons (P54 per person), or 17 percent higher than our new poverty line of P231 (P46 per person). We call the excess 1.3 million “vulnerable” to poverty; we don’t object to helping the vulnerable also.
P-Noy: So, when can I have poverty statistics pertaining to my administration?
NSCB: Sir, our next report, to be ready in February 2014, will pertain to 2012. We measure poverty once every three years, so after that will be our report on poverty in 2015, due in February 2017.
P-Noy: That’s only two reports on my administration’s impact on poverty—one for me, but when my term is more than half-over, and the other for my successor. My managers and I need data oftener than that.
NSCB: Sir, for 2012 we have assigned a technical committee to review some surveys for the possibility of generating poverty statistics annually.
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P-Noy: What has happened to poverty under my administration?
SWS: Sir, using annual averages, poverty has been at a terrace of 51 percent since 2004, and hunger has been on a plateau of 19 percent since 2009. This is up to the third quarter of 2011.
P-Noy: The NSCB calls your statistics soft.
SWS: Sir, they are equally as hard or reliable as the quarterly statistics on unemployment, which are also based on personal self-reporting (on desire and availability for work).
P-Noy: The NSCB says the SWS poverty statistics fluctuate wildly, which is unrealistic.
SWS: Sir, quarterly statistics always fluctuate more than statistics that are less frequent. So too do quarterly production and financial indicators fluctuate up and down. The greatest enemy of poverty and hunger is inflation, which is volatile. The NSCB has never measured poverty quarterly, by any method.
P-Noy: The NSCB says the SWS poverty thresholds stay constant despite inflation.
SWS: Sir, the thresholds are set by the poor, not by us. They are realistic. Aspiring for a home budget stable in money terms, but falling in real terms, is a sign of belt-tightening.
P-Noy: Do the SWS thresholds allot for non-food needs?
SWS: Sir, the respondents are asked for their needed total budget first, and then for their needed food budget. In September 2011, the median budget of the poor in Metro Manila was P15,000 per month in toto, with P6,000 for food; thus their non-food need was P9,000.
P-Noy: The NSCB says that SWS data are useful for politicians, but not for policy-making agencies like the NAPC or DSWD or DA or DepEd.
SWS: Sir, all those agencies you mentioned are or have been SWS clients, and take interest in the non-commissioned data presented to them. Policies based on fresh data tend to be superior to those based on data from years ago.
P-Noy: When will the next SWS poverty and hunger reports come out?
SWS: Sir, in January 2012, to be based on our fourth quarter survey fielded in December 2011, and currently being processed.
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Last Dec. 1, NSCB Secretary-General Romulo A. Virola defended the new official poverty data before the Cabinet Cluster on Human Development and Poverty Reduction (www.nscb.gov.ph/poverty/Poverty_Cabinet_Cluster_01Dec2011.pdf). He then wrote on it in “On the refinements on the official poverty estimation methodology, the sources of differences of the official poverty statistics and the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction Estimates, and other official poverty statistics-related concerns” (www.nscb.gov.ph/announce/ForTheRecord/13Dec2011_poverty.asp).
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Contact SWS: www.sws.org.ph or mahar.
mangahas@sws.org.ph.