by Lovely A. Carillo
Sights and sounds of advocacy, and left-leaning groups carrying placards condemning the high prices of gasoline and other fuel for the miserable situation of Filipinos in general, has become commonplace, not only in Metro Manila but even in a laidback region like Davao.
While many people are quick to say that these rabble-rousing groups have nothing better to do but blame the government and the oil price hike for the poor people’s misery, it seems that they have indeed hit the nail on the head.
The constant increases in fuel prices between 2003 and 2006 have been blamed for the rise in the number of poor people in the Davao Region resulting to a 2.1% increase in the number of poor families to about 257,554 in 2006.
“This figure reflects that Davao is the 9th poorest region in the country but has the lowest poverty incidence on Mindanao island,” National Economic and Development Authority 11 director Maria Lourdes D. Lim said during the 8th Davao Region Business Conference held in the city just last week.
Admittedly the “precipitating factors” for this is the fuel price increase between the said years and the implementation of EVAT (expanded value-added tax) which in turn resulted to increases in the prices of the basic utilities like transportation, light, water and communication. Lim said “this was aggravated by the absence of an increase in the salaries of government employees.”
Admitting this is one thing; doing something about the Davao Region’s poverty problem is another. This is the reason why the government’s goal for the 2004-2010 Medium Term Regional Development Plan is wealth creation and poverty reduction.
Lim said there are three indicators that will measure the government’s success in this goal and that includes the GRDP or Gross Regional Domestic Product which accounts for the total production of the regional economy, the per capita GRDP which accounts for individual contribution to the total economic production and of course, the magnitude of families living in poverty in the region as projected in the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES).
Confident
NEDA is confident that the government will be able to meet its goal of bringing down poverty incidence in the region by 2010. For one, a 34% increase in the per capita GRDP was noted in 2007. This means the individual share in the country’s production has improved from $240 in 2004 to about $322 in 2007.
“We hope to achieve the modest targets that we have set for 2009 and 2010 as we expect growth in the agriculture sector, fuelled by intensified government support towards irrigation, farm-to-market roads and post-harvest facilities,” Lim said.
Despite the global crisis, she said, they expect an improvement in the economy with the projected resurgence of the manufacturing and construction industries as well as the recovery of the mining and quarrying sectors.
The goal really is to reduce by 50% the “proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day as prescribed under the Millennium Development Goals.”
According to Lim, the regional economy actually grew at an average of 5.1% annually between 2004 and 2008, with 2007 as the best “comeback” of the economy despite the global economic crisis that year.
Strategies
NEDA has established strategies to help them achieve the goal of reducing poverty incidence during the said period including increased job generation and investments, . These strategies, when successful, are expected to spur economic growth and a better way of life for Dabawenyos and all others in the region.
The government’s thrust of increasing the number of employment opportunities to spur economic growth is evident with the number of jobs fair spearheaded by the Department of Labor and Employment during the past years. The number of jobs created during the period is the benchmark in monitoring the economy’s performance. Unfortunately, job generation between 2004 and 2006 suffered the biggest slump as a result of the economic contraction. This was, however, improved with the more than 180,000 jobs arising mainly from the services, mining and construction sectors. This accomplishment has made NEDA more confident that the region can generate at least 130,000 jobs this year and next year.
The regional economy has earned a total of P58.6 billion in the past five years, with the biggest gain posted in 2008. An annual increase of 12% is targeted for the remaining period considering a gradual recovery from the global crisis. The region’s growth is expected to be spurred by imports receipts which amounted to $992 million in the last five years.
Taxpayers
The region’s tax base has exhibited a 14% growth annually with the highest growth noted in 2007. Some 479 thousand new taxpayers are expected this year and about 546 thousand by 2010. The taxpayers volume is indicative of the possible income that will be earned by the region based on the volume of population that joined the formal sector as a result of growth in the economy. Along with an increasing tax base is a decrease in the unemployment rate which, however, will remain in double digits. Lim said this simply signifies the working sector’s desire to get additional hours of work or get additional jobs for income augmentation.
There are other indicators that the Davao Region has indeed achieved its goal of reducing its poverty incidence, among them the malnutrition rate, maternal mortality rate, education, labor productivity, access to safe water and sanitary toilets and enrolment in social protection programs of the government, among others, according to Lim.
“The number 15 indicator is Enrolment in Social Protection Programs. Data so far cover the Social Security System or SSS, and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation or PHIC. We solicited data from Government Service Insurance System or GSIS but they could not give us the data for the same reason that all of us already know.”
The government barely has a year to go in its MTRDP and, while it is confident that it will be able to achieve its goal of further reducing poverty incidence in the region, the people believe that life is getting harder every year without assurance that their lives are going to get better in the future.
