ELEVEN in every 100 Dabawenyo families in the Davao Region were considered poor or had income below needed to buy the minimum basic food and non-food needs in 2023, according to the latest survey conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority Regional Statistical Services Office (PSA-Davao).
The recent poverty data presented during the Regional Data Dissemination Forum of the 2023 Full Year Official Poverty Statistics on Friday morning, October 25, 2024, showed that poverty incidence of families or the proportion of families with per capita income falling below the poverty line in the region was at 11.3 percent in the previous year.
“The poverty incidence among families in Davao region was observed to be higher than the national incident in 2018 and 2023,” Randolph Anthony Gales, PSA-Davao chief statistical specialist, OIC-Regional Director, noted during the forum while also pointing out that the basis of poverty incidence is the percentage of all households and individuals whose per capita income or expenditure falls below the per capita poverty line.
Gales added that the projection was less than the predicted poverty incidence rates of 11.9 percent in 2021 and 13.9 percent in 2018.
“In terms of numbers, Davao region recorded about 165,410 poor families or families having income less than the poverty threshold in 2023,” he said.
Based on the statistics, the Zamboanga Peninsula had the highest poverty incidence among families in 2023, at 24.2 percent, while Davao Region continued to have the lowest rates of poverty among Mindanao regions.
Meanwhile, with 32.4 percent of the population living in poverty in 2023, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) had the highest rate.
“In terms of subsistence among families and among population, the highest incidences were recorded in Zamboanga in 2023, at 7.9 percent and 11.4 percent, respectively. In the same period, Davao region had the lowest subsistence incidences among families and individuals with 2.9 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively,” Gales explained.
P13,000/month for a family of five ‘not poor’
According to recent estimates, a family of five in the Davao region would need to earn P157,607 in 2023, or an average of P13,134 per month, in order to cover their most basic needs for food and non-food items.
In 2023, the Davao region's yearly per capita poverty level was projected to be P31,521. This indicates that in 2023, a person was required to make at least P2,627 per month, or P432 per day, in order to escape poverty. However, in 2023, it was anticipated that the annual per capita food threshold, or the amount of money required to maintain basic food demands, would be P22,065.
This means that a Dabawenyo with five members of the family would need to earn P110,323 a year, or P302 per day, to cover their basic food needs. Between 2021 and 2022, the region's per capita poverty and food thresholds rose by around 12 percent or 4.0 percent a year on average. DEF