Philippine poverty right now

As the name states, this will be a blog about Philippine economics and politics that's supposed to be run by a Leftist (i.e. me). I'm doing this blog because we do live in interesting times under new President Rodrigo Duterte. As of this time, most of the people I've talked to are adopting a wait-and-see attitude toward him. This is interesting, considering that his "Negatives" column list down killings and human rights violations. Apparently his other things about him are balancing out that otherwise troubling fact.

I'm not confident of being able to follow through with updates, and this is not the first time I've attempted to blog. So hopefully this works.

So, immediately down to business, we need some base lines. Where are we at. Or, how fucked up are we? I did a quick search and also looked at articles from Ibon, the local Establishment Left's think tank. (This industrialization pitch is a good read.) I plan to stick to covering only a bare minimum of data points that fall within my concerns. Poverty and wage numbers are, of course, a must.

Poverty

It's a terrific country, any way you look at it. Out of a hundred million Filipinos, some 26 million are poor (26.3% poverty incidence as of the latest official statistics). Poor means these folks below the poverty threshold of P10,969 annually, or P30 pesos a day. The running joke has always been, you have P30 right now, you're fine.

The figure is a national average, which does not mean that when you walk out in the street to congregate with your fellow Pinoys in Manila's malls, one out of every four souls you'd meet is poor. The NCR itself has a poverty incidence of 6.5%. The problem is, since 2006, it's been rising. Poverty incidence in the capital has increased from 4.4%, 5.3%, 5.4%, to the great leap backward at 6.5%, from 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2015 respectively. If I recall, administration bet Roxas failed in the national capital. This should be one of the reasons. Of course it may be due to urban migration due to the influx of Pinoys from the provinces.

Speaking of the provinces. As of the first half of 2015, the poorest regions in the Philippines (and their corresponding poverty incidence percentages by population) are:

1. ARMM:   59.0
2. Region VIII Samar-Leyte:  47.3
3. Region XII Cotabato:  44.5
4. Caraga Region:   43.9
5. Bukidnon   40.9

Mindanao is definitely buying it. Duterte's region, Davao, itself has a poverty incidence of 26.7%, which is still just above the national average, although only five other regions (NCR, IVA, Central Luzon, Isabela and Ilocos) actually beat the national figure.

Throughout the country, the only other places outside of the NCR that produce single-digit poverty rates are Bulacan, Pampanga, Laguna and Benguet. Excluding the last, these are most probably just due to the fact that people in these provinces actually work in Metro Manila. All roads lead to Makati and Ortigas, whether you're the smart, fast-paced English-speaking yuppie or the toilet bowl cleaner serving those yuppies. Benguet of course is the seat of Baguio.

The thing is obviously systemic. Another way of saying that provinces all over the country did not just decide one by one to jump into the poverty ship. We have good reason to think they don't actually like to be there, and have attempted to get out. Something drove them. The question is whether Duterte will get to have a look at what did.

Any way you put it, 26 million individuals categorized as poor by official standards is not a way to make a society, least of them a "happy" one. I currently don't have comparative figures for other countries in the Southeast Asian region. All I know is, whenever I look at the product details of the grocery items (food), they're all showing as coming from Thailand.