Ben Madilynn
IN A WORLD where a cup of coffee might cost more than an entire day’s meal under the National Economic and Development Authority’s (Neda) recent poverty threshold, one can’t help but wonder how detached such calculations are from the real lives of millions of Filipinos. The announcement that spending P64 per day on food — equating to a meager P21 per meal — renders a person “not food poor” has sparked a wave of outrage, disbelief, and derision across the nation.
To anyone living in the Philippines or anywhere in the world where inflation is real, and prices are steep, this figure appears more as a cruel joke than a serious statistic. Memes and sarcastic comments exploded on social media, mocking the notion that one could survive — let alone a family — on such a budget. The issue here is not only with a poorly selected number but also with the risky precedent it creates when we begin basing public opinion and policy on numbers so far apart from reality.
Senator Risa Hontiveros captured the sentiment of many when she called the threshold “insulting” and “saddening.” Indeed, to suggest that P64 a day is enough to stave off food poverty is not just an affront to the dignity of those struggling with hunger; it is a glaring misrepresentation of the complexities of poverty itself. “Kung ganun lang ang akala nating kailangan, ganun din lang ang aambisyonin natin bilang isang bansa,” she lamented. If we settle for such low standards in our metrics, what does that say about our ambitions as a nation?
Former Senator Kiko Pangilinan went even further, dismissing the threshold as “kalokohan” (nonsense) and calling for reconfiguring these criteria. He astutely noted that if such figures truly reflect what it costs to eat adequately, then perhaps government officials should be required to live within this budget themselves. The absurdity of the P64 per day threshold becomes glaringly apparent when placed alongside the everyday expenses of ordinary citizens, not to mention the significant costs associated with ensuring a nutritious diet.
This controversy sheds a harsh light on how we measure poverty and, by extension, how we tackle it. The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) admitted that the P64 threshold is insufficient, yet it was defended as a “least-cost method approach” designed to track changes in poverty over time. The methodology, which adjusts for inflation but not for the actual cost of living, is based on a food bundle supposedly capable of meeting the minimum nutritional requirements at the lowest possible price. To be continued
– Herman M. Lagon
