Lawmakers on Tuesday, August 13, told the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) to review its poverty threshold to help the government report more accurate figues.
The senators made the call as NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said during the Senate hearing on the proposed 2025 budget that people who spend less than P64 a day on three meals are considered “food poor.”
During the hearing, the lawmakers asked Balisacan about current threshold for a person to be considered as “food poor.”
Balisacan said the monthly food threshold as of 2023 is around P9,581 for a family of five or P64 per person that covers three meals a day.
This amount has risen from the 2021 “food poor” threshold of P55 per person and is projected to reach P67 by 2025, according to Balisacan.
“The reason we are keeping it constant, in real terms after adjusting for inflation, is just to ensure that we are tracking properly the changes and allow us to understand whether our policies, our programs are working insofar as these are able to reduce poverty,” Balisacan said.
Senator Grace Poe then told Balisacan that there are certain things that have to be adjusted to make sure that things are realistic on the ground.
“When you compute poverty thresholds using an old number which is obviously not workable anymore, P20 per meal eh hindi totoo ‘yung poverty forecast (niyo),” Poe said.
Balisacan then admitted that the country’s poverty threshold has already been set for more than a decade.
The NEDA Chief assured that they will revisit their poverty threshold. (TCSP)
