PSA National Statistician and Civil Registrar General Undersecretary Dennis Mapa said based on the results of the preliminary 2021 Family and Income Expenditures Survey (FIES), the poverty incidence in Central Visayas rose to 27.6 percent from 17.7 percent in 2018. This is lower, though, compared to the 29.4 percent recorded in 2015.
The 27.6 percent translates to around 2.22 million poor Filipinos out of the region’s more than eight million total population.
Among families, the poverty incidence was at 22.1 percent in 2021, which is equivalent to 434,000 poor families. This is also higher than the 13.4 percent recorded in 2018.
Poverty incidence has been defined as “the proportion of families or individuals with per capita income less than the per capita poverty threshold to the total number of families or individuals.”
Poverty threshold is the minimum income required for a family or individual to meet the basic food and non-food needs.
In Central Visayas, Mapa said a Filipino needed at least an average of P2,602 income per month to meet his or her basic food and non-food needs in 2021. A family with five members, meanwhile, needed P13,008 on average per month.
He said Negros Oriental registered the highest poverty incidence with 29.3 percent, followed by Cebu Province with 28.6 percent, Bohol with 23.8 percent, and Siquijor having the lowest with 3.4 percent.
The poverty incidence in the highly urbanized cities of Mandaue, Lapu-Lapu and Cebu was recorded at 15.1, 14.7 and 14.0 percent, respectively.
As to poverty incidence among families, Negros Oriental still topped the list with 23.6 percent, followed by Cebu Province with 22.8 percent, Bohol with 19.1 percent and Siquijor with 2.2 percent.
Lapu-Lapu City had the highest poverty incidence among families with 10.8 percent, followed by Mandaue City with 10.4 percent and Cebu City with 9.8 percent.
Siquijor was the only province in Central Visayas that was considered “least poor” in 2021.
Mapa said there are two factors that affect the poverty threshold: increase in prices of basic commodities and the increase in income.
“So bawat taon, talagang may nakikita tayong pag-adjust ng price, so it’s a matter of whether the price is adjusting very fast or rather slow. Pag tumataas yung presyo, tumataas yung poverty threshold natin. So pwede na pag walang increase sa income, talagang magdadagdag yung mga poor families natin,” he said.
(So every year, we see a price adjustment, so it’s a matter of whether the price is adjusting very fast or rather slow. When the price increases, our poverty threshold increases. So it is possible that if there is no increase in income, the number of our poor families will really increase.)
“Yung pangalawang side sa estimation is the increase in income. Noong 2015 and 2018, may increase din sa prices, so there was an increase in poverty threshold, pero mas mabilis yung increase sa income, kaya tumaas yung threshold, pero tumaas din yung income,” he added.
(Another factor is the increase in income. In 2015 and 2018, there was an increase in prices, so there was also an increase in the poverty threshold, but the increase in income was faster, so while the threshold increased, the income also increased.)
In Siquijor, he said they saw no movement in prices of basic commodities between 2018 and 2021. “The price was almost stable.”
Dolores Molintas, officer-in-charge director of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) 7, said based on their observation, “the life of people in Siquijor is simple and the people of Siquijor are self-sufficient, the way I see it.”
“They have simple needs. And also if you’ve noticed, yung typhoon Odette did not really affect Siquijor. It is also for these reasons that Siquijor has been able to maintain its poverty incidence since 2018,” she said.
Typhoon Odette hit the Visayas, particularly Bohol and Cebu, on Dec. 16, 2021, leaving swaths of destruction and over 400 people dead.
Aside from Odette, the Covid-19 pandemic has also left several people unemployed in Cebu and other areas in the region, Mapa said.
“It’s really on the income side na nakita natin na talagang bumaba yung income dahil may mga kababayan tayo na nawalan ng trabaho. It’s because of the pandemic,” he said.
Based on recent data from PSA, Central Visayas recorded an 8.2 percent unemployment rate in April 2021. This has dropped to eight percent in January 2022, and further eased to 5.2 percent in April 2022.
The rate has improved as more businesses have reopened, while some commercial activities have resumed two years since the Covid-12 pandemic began.
“Hopefully, we can lower the poverty incidence now that the economy has reopened,” Mapa said.