BAGUIO CITY—Poverty incidence among families in the Cordillera was pegged at 14.9 percent in 2015, lower by 2.6 percent compared to the 17.5 percent recorded in 2012, the regional office of the Philippine Statistics Authority said Thursday.
In terms of magnitude, poor families in the Cordillera decreased from 65,516 in 2012 to 59,759 in 2015, the PSA-CAR report added. Data showed Apayao had the highest poverty incidence among families with 30.9 percent, followed by Kalinga with 30 percent.
Benguet had the least number of poor families at 2.5 percent, the agency added.
PSA-CAR also estimated the poverty threshold of the region for 2015 at P21,770 per capita per annum, which translates to a minimum of P9,071 monthly take-home income for a family of five to meet both basic food and non-food needs and be considered not poor in the survey year.
Although Apayao has the most number of poor families, PSA-CAR said the province still had the biggest drop in poverty incidence at 23.8 percent decrease, while Ifugao’s poor families dropped by 9.9 percent and Abra’s poor decreased by 7.3 percent.
Kalinga, on the other hand, saw more poor families over the last three years, from 20.9 percent in 2012 to 30 percent in 2015, while Mountain Province’s poverty incidence also rose 27.9 percent to 29.5 percent.
Within the region, Kalinga had the most number of poor families at 12,884, followed by Abra (12,400), Mountain Province (11,615) and ifugao (11,133). On the other end of the scale, Benguet had just 4,783 poor families, and Apayao with 6,945 families.
PSA-CAR also noted that subsistence incidence among families in the region dropped by 2.3 percent, from 7.1 percent in 2012 to 4.8 percent in 2015.
Subsistence-poor, or food-poor, families were estimated at 19,200 in 2015, lower than the 26,496 recorded in 2012, the agency said.
Ifugao had the highest subsistence incidence among families at 12.8 percent, followed by Kalinga with 11.2 percent and Apayao with 9.3 percent.
Benguet again recorded the lowest subsistence incidence at 0.3 percent in 2015, followed by Apayao at 4.9 percent — 23 percent lower compared to the 27.9 percent subsistence families noted in 2012.
Subsistence incidence among families in the region decreased except for Kalinga, which increased from 8.8 percent in 2012 to 11.2 percent in 2015.
Ifugao tallied the highest number of subsistence poor families at 5,445, followed by Kalinga (4,833), Mountain Province (3,613), Apayao (3,043), Abra (1,610) and Benguet (656).
Mountain Province had the highest poverty threshold in the region at P23,620 per capita in 2015 followed by Ifugao (P22,673). These provinces’ thresholds are above the region’s threshold by 8.5 percent for Mountain Province and 4.1 percent for Ifugao.
Kalinga tallied the highest increase in poverty threshold at 18 percent, from P17,342 in 2012 to P20,468 in 2015, while Abra had the lowest increase at 7.4 percent from P19,775 in 2012 to P21,240 in 2015.
Kalinga still had the lowest per capita poverty threshold in 2015, followed by Apayao with P20,947 per capita.