Four out of six Cordillera provinces are among the country’s poorest, with three towns in two of its other provinces belonging to the poorest 100 towns in the Philippines.
BY LYN V. RAMO
Northern Dispatch
Posted by Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 23, July 13-19, 2008
BAGUIO CITY (246 kms. North of Mannila) – Four out of six Cordillera provinces are among the country’s poorest, with three towns in two of its other provinces belonging to the poorest 100 towns in the Philippines.
The National Statistics Coordination Board (NSCB) lists Apayao as the 4th and Abra the 9th among the poorest provinces in the country. Kalinga and Ifugao are 11th and 16th respectively.
Apayao has the highest poverty incidence in Cordillera with 57.5 percent, followed by Abra at 50.1 percent and Ifugao at 30.9 percent.
Benguet’s Kibungan town, and four Ifugao towns including Asipulo and Mayoyao are among the poorest towns in the region.
Mountain Province was taken out of the list of poorest provinces in 2006. It is in the 2003 listing.
Poverty, hunger and malnutrition
These provinces are food-poor, according to Dr. Micaela Defiesta of the Cordillera Nutrition Council. Being food poor may result in hunger. “Under-nutrition is a consequence of prolonged hunger,” she added.
Defiesta said ordinary Cordilleran may not be hungry in terms of the amount of food intake, but if the food intake is largely cereal-based, nutrition may suffer. “It is not the quantity of food intake but the quality and balance of nutrients in the food that counts,” she told the media during the Kapihan with Cordillera Regional Executives (CARE) 9.
The annual average family income in the region in 2003 was at P157,045 ($2,897.51 at the year’s average exchange rate of $1:P54.20), higher than the country’s P148,617 ($2,472.01). The country’s annual average family expenditure of P124,377 ($2,294.78) in the same year is higher than Cordillera’s P122,882 ($2,267.20).
As of 2006, Cordillera’s poverty threshold is at P16,810 ($327.62 at the year’s average exchange rate of $1:P51.31) per person per year, higher than the country’s annual per capita poverty threshold of P15,057 ($293.45) for the same year.
The country’s annual food threshold was P50,125 ($976.91), while the poverty threshold was P75,285 ($1,467.26), as of 2006.
Government statistics show that around 42,000 are poor in Abra, 7,000 in Kalinga; 6,000 in Mountain Province and around 4,000 in Apayao.
“These are agricultural areas where farmers could grow anything and yet they are still considered food poor,” said Defiesta.
Improved
NSCB statistics showed that the poverty situation in Benguet, Mt. Province and Kalinga improved with the decline in poverty incidence of families and the population in 2006.
Benguet showed a decline of 2.8 percent and a drop by 18.4 percent in the number of poor families between 2003 and 2006. It is 5th among the country’s least poor provinces, with poverty incidence of 8.2, percent, as of 2006.
The United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals include the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger by 2015. The Millennium Development Goals also include reducing by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and those who suffer from hunger. Northern Dispatch / Posted by (Bulatlat.com)
