Malacañang coming up with solutions vs poverty

Malacañang said yesterday that it is coming up with solutions to address the rising inflation and help poor families amid the seemingly increasing number of Filipino families who consider themselves as poor.

In a statement, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said measures that the government is taking to address poverty include pushing for rice tariffication and implementation the Build, Build, Build Program to lower the transport cost of food and goods.

A second quarter 2018 Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll, conducted from June 27-30, found that 48 percent of Filipino families, or 11.1 million families, considered themselves poor. This is six points higher than the 42 percent or 9.8 million families from the previous quarter and the highest since the 50 percent during 2017's first quarter.

Roque said Malacañang is taking the results of the survey seriously, noting that there are factors that contributed to such a development.

He said that when June inflation numbers were announced, families felt an increase in food prices, particularly the accelerated increase in the price of rice during the survey period, because of weather-related delays in the distribution of cheap imports.

Rice inflation, he added, picked up consistently from 1 percent in January to 4.7 percent in June.

Roque said the timing of the survey should also be considered. He said that at the time of the survey, the Department of Social Welfare and Development had distributed Unconditional Cash Transfers to around 3.8 million of the 10 million total beneficiaries.