Archive for the ‘Poverty’ Category

Connie Veneracion
Manila Standard
On Oct. 15, Blog Action Day (www.blogactionday.org) hopes to repeat the success of last year’s initiative to get people and media talking about the environment. This year, thousands of independent Web publishers will write about an even more controversial subject—poverty.
To be frank, I am already anticipating a barrage of essays condemning poverty as [...]

Doris Dumlao
Philippine Daily Inquirer
MANILA, Philippines— The new poverty line for Asia-Pacific is $1.35 a day and about 23 million Filipinos, or 27 percent of the Philippine population, are living below it.
Using the regional poverty threshold of the Asian Development Bank, the Philippines is is next to Pakistan and worse than Vietnam when it comes to [...]

Rommel C. Lontayao
Manila Times
The Social Weather Stations (SWS) said recent surveys showing increasing self-rated poverty levels among Filipino families has “wiped out” what President Gloria Arroyo claimed in her State of the Nation Address regarding the country’s improving poverty situation.
SWS released on Thursday results of its latest survey, which was not commissioned, showing that around [...]

Helen Flores
Philippine Star

Some 10.6 million Filipino families now rate themselves as poor, according to a recent survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS), which showed self-rated poverty on the rise since December 2007.
In a statement, SWS said the latest figure wiped out the decline in self-rated poverty “to its 20-year low in 2007” as announced [...]

Darwin G. Amojelar
Manila Times
THE World Bank wants the private sector to focus on the poor in developing countries such as the Philippines to bring them out of their misery.
“Addressing the unmet needs of the BoP [base of the economic pyramid] is essential to raising welfare, productivity, and income—to enabling BoP households to find their own [...]

by Tony Lopez
from The Manila Times
Under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the rich became richer, the poor became poorer. Not only that, those who were marginally rich crossed the line toward poverty.
All these happened under seven years or 29 quarters of robust, consecutive and sustained economic growth, averaging more than 5 percent per quarter and 5 percent [...]

Darwin G. Amojelar
Manila Times
THE Asian Development Bank (ADB) said the Philippines’ next assistance program remains “daunting” owing to high poverty levels and weak investments.
In its Country Assistance Program Evaluation Report, the Manila-based lender said its assistance program over the past five years, or from 2003 to 2007, has been successful in meeting its more selective [...]

Philippine Daily Inquirer
MANILA, Philippines—More Filipino families across the country experienced involuntary hunger (hunger due to lack of food) between April and June than during the first three months of the year, a recent Social Weather Stations survey showed.
Amid soaring food and fuel prices, involuntary hunger in Metro Manila rose to a record high of more [...]

Roderick T. dela Cruz
Manila Standard
The World Bank has expressed support for the Philippine government’s conditional cash transfer or subsidy program to help the poorest Filipinos cope with rising cost of living.
World Bank country director Bert Hofman said the bank is even willing to work with the Social Welfare Department to expand the scope of the [...]

Helen Flores
Philippine Star
About 2.9 million Filipino families or 16.3 percent experienced hunger at least once in the past three months due to soaring food prices, the Social Weather Stations (SWS) reported yesterday.
In its Second Quarter 2008 Social Weather Survey, SWS said the number of Filipino families that experienced “involuntary hunger” rose from 15.7 percent in [...]