5-yr anti-poverty plan to lift 6 M Filipinos out of poverty by 2022

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CEBU CITY The National AntiPoverty Commission (NAPC) is optimistic that, by 2022, the country’s poverty incidence rate would decrease by 14 percent with the launch of the 5-year Anti-Poverty Development Plan dubbed as “Sambayanihan Serbisyong Sambayanan” here in Cebu over the weekend.

NAPC Secretary and Lead Convenor Atty. Noel Felongco, in a media press conference, said that the agency’s ultimate goal was to reduce poverty in the country by 14 percent in 2022, which is equivalent to about six to eight million Filipinos, out of poverty and “to attain zero poverty by 2040.”

Felongco said the approach will be replicated in the regions where the country’s top 40 most poverty-stricken provinces are located.

With NAPC’s ultimate goal, the program is determined to engage the participation of 14 sectors such as urban poor, farmers, fisher folks, labor, persons with disabilities, victims of disasters, and street children in the country’s poverty-stricken provinces, Felongco bared.

Based on NAPC’s 2015 poverty incidence, Region 7 had a 27.6-percent poverty incidence rate, and this can be addressed via the 5-year anti-develop- ment plan, Felongco asserted.

He said the programs of NAPC provide informal settler families (ISFs) and the urban poor with basic services, innovative infrastructure, health, livelihood and employment of 40 of these provinces in the country.

With 40 provinces found to be most vulnerable to climate change as determined under NAPC’s Actionable Development Agenda for Poverty Transformation (ADAPT), he urged LGUs to draw up their respective local climate change plans to stave off widespread devastation similar to typhoon Usman inflicted in the Bicol region.

“This is to avoid any more casualties of poverty. The LGU’s should act with urgency in crafting their own local climate action plan before it is too late”, he said.

According to Felongco, this was being undertaken on instructions of President Duterte that the Sambayanihan or convergence approach will not leave out any province in the country.

The strategy enjoins the Human Development and Poverty Reduction (HDPR) cabinet cluster members including DSWD, DA, DOLE, TESDA, DTI, PCUP and others for support in target cities and municipalities with high rates of poverty incidence. (With reports from Aubrey Jimenea, UST intern)