NAPC exec sees 14% poverty rate in 2022

PRESIDENT Duterte’s point man in the antipoverty campaign has expressed confidence the country’s poverty incidence would have been whittled down to 14% in 2022 once “government services are brought closer to the 14 basic sectors of society without let-up.”

The country’s poverty incidence currently stands at 21.6%.

In Cebu City, National Anti-Poverty Commission Secretary and Lead Convenor Noel K. Felongco said NAPC has figured out a formula---that combines social reform agenda and poverty reduction activities-in sustaining government services to these basic sectors.

The NAPC is chaired by President Rodrigo R. Duterte himself with Secretary Felongco as the Lead Convenor.

The formula is emMANILA bodied in the five-year Sambayanihan Serbisyong Sambayan (2018-2022) program that sought:

• To provide Informal Settler Families (ISFs) and the urban poor with basic services and access to climate-responsive dwelling, livelihood and employment

• Developing innovative infrastructure and financing mechanisms to the rural poor

• Strengthening ruralurban agro-economic value chains

• Securing the health and general well-being of poor communities

• Enhancing food security

• Mindanao special development program

The Malasakit Centers, a one-stop medical center established in 10 cities by President Duterte fits exactly into the system.

Felongco said the apMANILA

proach will be replicated in the regions where “the country’s top 40 most poverty-stricken provinces are located.” The regions also host the 10 poorest municipalities and the 10 poorest barangays.

With the reduction of poverty as the ultimate goal, the program is determined to engage the participation of 14 basic sectors (urban poor, farmers, fisherfolks, labor and informal labor, workers and informal workers, women, persons with disabilities, victims of disasters and calamities, children, senior citizens, non-government organizations and cooperatives) in the country’s top 40 poverty-stricken provinces.

“This is on instruction of President Duterte himself,” said Felongco, adding that the Sambayanihan or convergence approach will not leave out any province.

“We shall go to all provinces without exception to engage all 14 basic sectors that make up the majority of Philippine society,” he said.

Felongco said the approach is meant to capacitate or to show to the basic sectors how to engage government services in addressing the 10 basic needs that included food, water, shelter, work, health care, education, social protection, healthy environment, peace and participation in decision-making.

“The Duterte administration may look harsh against corruption and illegal drugs, but it has the concerns of the poor at heart, hence this continuing social reform program and poverty reduction activities,” said Felongco.