Self-rated poverty slightly down – OCTA

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s self-rated poverty and hunger rates remained mostly stable in the first quarter of the year, according to a recent survey by the OCTA Research group.

The survey, conducted from March 19 to 25, found that 35 percent of respondents considered their families poor.

It was slightly down from the 37 percent obtained in a similar survey in December.

Those who said their families were not poor increased, from 22 percent to 24 percent, while those who can’t say if their families are poor or not remained at 41 percent.

Self-rated poverty was highest among those in Mindanao at 56 percent (from 67 percent), followed by those in the Visayas at 44 percent (from 40 percent), balance Luzon at 25 percent (from 22 percent) and Metro Manila at 21 percent (from 33 percent).

“Regional movements in self-rated poverty… point to a pattern of fragmented recovery beneath the modest national decline from 37 percent to 35 percent,” OCTA said.

“While the national topline suggests relative stability, regional results indicate that this aggregate outcome was not driven by broad-based improvement, but by uneven and offsetting shifts across the country,” it added.

Some regions reported significant improvements, such as in Region X where self-rated poverty dropped by 47 points (from 78 percent to 31 percent).

But there were also double digit increases in some regions, including Cordillera, Negros and Cagayan Valley.

The country’s hunger incidence rate was also stable, with 17 percent saying they experienced involuntary hunger in the past three months. It was almost similar to the 16 percent in the December poll.

Meanwhile, 83 percent said they did not experience hunger, hardly moving from 84 percent in the previous survey. — Emmanuel Tupas