CamNorte lowest poverty incidence

By JUAN ESCANDOR, JR

NAGA CITY: With only a little more than two out of 10 families considered poor, CamNorte tops the six provinces in Bicol in terms of families living above poverty level.

According to the latest report of the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB), CamNorte’s poverty incidence in 2012 was 24.7 per cent among families, which was almost 10 per cent lower than the regional poverty incidence of 34.1 per cent.

CamNorte was able to cut 7.7 per cent of its poverty incidence from 32.4 per cent in 2009 to 24.7 per cent last year, according to Josephine Chua, spokesperson of NSCB Bicol.

“Camarines Norte has the best performance in terms of poverty reduction,” Chua said.

The NSCB, the government agency responsible for measuring socio-economic data of the population, conducts survey every three years to determine the proportion of the people below the poverty line to the total population.

Considered in the poverty survey is whether or not a Filipino family of five meets the basic food needs every month estimated at P5,458 and to stay above it, the poverty threshold which include non-food needs at P7,821.

“The food threshold is the minimum income required by an individual to meet his/her basic food needs and satisfy the nutritional requirements set by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI), while remaining economically and socially productive.

“Put another way, the food threshold helps measure food poverty or ‘subsistence,’ which may also be described as extreme poverty,” the NSCB report cited.

For the previous poverty surveys in 2006 and 2009, CamNorte’s per capita poverty thresholds were lower than the regional record but it has significantly increased in 2012, more than the regional mean.

The per  capita income of a  family of five in CamNorte progressively increased from P6,439 in 2006, P8,221 in 2009 to P9,166 in 2012, which was P144 more than the regional mean of P9,022.

CamNorte Gov. Edgar “Egay” Tallado credited the flow of projects from the national government that he said has somehow increased productivity and incomes of the majority of farming families.

Tallado cited the electrification of villages which has perked up the local economies and the construction more than 100km of road that connected isolated villages to the town centers.

He said he has dedicated his projects in providing farmers with production and technical inputs like seedlings, fertilizers, fingerlings, and financial grants to improve the livelihood of farmers including the construction of irrigation facilities.

Among the six provinces in Bicol, Masbate has the highest poverty incidence at 44.2 per cent, followed by Albay with 36.1 per cent while Camarines Sur got the third highest number of poor families at 33.5 percent.

Sorsogon province ran fourth in terms of the greatest number of poor families with 32.1 per cent of the total Sorsoganon families, while Catanduanes made the second best performance for the six Bicol provinces with only 27.1 per cent of families in the poverty level. – Bicol Mail