Over the years, Philippines overwhelmingly faces various dilemmas and
economic crises wherein poverty is the most well-known root cause. As a third world country, the Philippine government and its people have been conducting several actions to fight famine and poverty, thus, expected to have slight changes on the country’s inclusive conditions, especially on the marginalized sector. Included here are the statistical data provided by the Philippine Statistics Authority to further explain the overall approximate condition of poverty in the country. During the year 2015, the overall percentage of poverty incidence of the country sums up to 27.6%. And just recently, the total poverty incidence for the year 2018 was said to be 21.0%. Rate of poverty among all regions were also recorded and analysed. For the year 2015, the country’s top regions with highest rates of poverty, arranged from 3 rd to 1st, are as follows: (3) Region XII SOCCSKSARGEN with 44.4%, (2) Region VIII Eastern Visayas with 48.0%, and the highest (1) Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with 61.6%. Slight changes can be seen from the recorded 2018 poverty incidence wherein Region XII SOCCSKSARGEN was excluded from the regions with dominating rates of scarcity. The recent record includes the following regions with observable high rates of poverty as follows: (3) Region VIII Eastern Visayas with 37.6%, (2) Region IX Zamboanga Peninsula with 39.5%, and the still highest (1) Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with 63.0%. The remaining provinces or regions including areas in Luzon, Visayas and the remainings of Mindanao has been reported to have decreasing rates of 2018 poverty incidence compared to the year 2015 which ranges from 8-12 percent. It is surprisingly evident that with this given sets of data, it is observable that the Philippines and its sub regions have had enormous decrease of rates of families with incomes lower than the standard poverty thresholds. Areas in Luzon have the highest decrease of poverty rates. Over the last three years, from 2015 to 2018, Filipinos in general, have improved their conditions and ways of living though poverty can still be predominantly seen, particularly in regions of Muslim Mindanao. The Philippines still faces major circumstances of hunger and low family incomes amidst high decrease of poverty incidence, thus, Filipinos still have a long way to go to completely eradicate poverty.
Title: Statistical Poverty Conditions of the Philippines for the Years 2015 and 2018