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What will you do to reduce the number of people below the poverty level? Improve their lives. Reduce poverty.
Oh wait, there is another way, reduce the poverty threshold. Parang young luksong tinik. Magic? No just simple artihmetic.
Lawmakers are pushing for a more realistic yardstick for counting the number of poor Filipinos after the government lowered the minimum daily subsistence level from P52 to P46 per person, a move that significantly lowered the country’s poverty incidence.
Kabataan Representative Raymond V. Palatino on Monday scored the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) for adopting a new poverty threshold level which he said “deceptively” led to a reduction in the poverty rate from 26.3 percent to 20.9 percent.
“We are able to reduce poverty not by improving the lives of Filipinos but through statistical magic. The new scheme effectively decreases the number of poor Filipinos by 5.3 million without improving the poverty situation. If this was presented without explaining the drastic change in the methodology, it could be used to push for economic results,”
Palatino said in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Palatino authored House Resolution No. 960 which seeks to investigate the NSCB adoption of a new poverty measurement scheme.
Stewart L. Udall (1920 - ), commencement address, Dartmouth College, June 13, 1965
Pinaysaamerika
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