San Fran, Alegria, Ginatilan poorest Cebu towns

CEBU, Philippines - The National Statistical Coordination Board released yesterday the 2006 to 2009 city and municipal-level poverty estimates which showed the top three poor municipalities of the Province of Cebu.

The municipalities are San Francisco with a poverty incidence of 59.49 percent, Alegria with 62.36 percent and Ginatilan with 67.96 as of 2009.

In 2006, Alegria, with the same percentage, was also included in the top three poor municipalities followed by Tabuelan with 66.48 percent and Santa Fe with 65.02 percent.

“These towns have to do better,” said Dr. Zita Albacea, project consultant of the Institute of Statistics of the University of the Philippines, Los Baños.

Yesterday, the NSCB conducted a dissemination forum on the 2006 and 2009 city and municipal-level poverty estimates in Cebu City for the Visayas regions, the third and the last after the same activity was held in Quezon City for Luzon and in Davao City for Mindanao.

National Economic Development Authority–7 regional director Buenaventura Go-Soco Jr. said that the forum was timely because government planners are now updating its regional development plans.

The statistics also showed that poverty incidence in Cebu has dropped to 30 percent in 2009 from the 32.1 percent in 2006.

Of the four provinces in Central Visayas, Siquijor has the lowest poverty incidence with 22.8 percent in 2006 and it went up to 38 percent in 2009.

However, Albacea said the latest data may be unreliable and could have been caused by the small number of observations per province.

There is also no official municipal or city level estimates that are generated directly from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey.

Generally, the NSCB reported that there were significant decreases from 2006 to 2009 in poverty incidence of 80 out of the 132 municipalities and cities in Central Visayas.

For the rest of the municipalities and cities, the NSCB said that there were changes in the numerical values but these were not that significant.

The Philippine Poverty Statistics are released every three years at the regional and provincial level of disaggregation.

In 2005, the NSCB with funding assistance from the World Bank ASEM Trust Fund, conducted a poverty mapping project using small area estimation methodology as part of the Philippine Statistical System’s effort to respond to the growing need for lower-level disaggregation of information on the poor.

The Elbers, Lanjouw and Lanjouw (ELL) Methodology was used in 2005 to generate the 2000 City and Municipal level Poverty Statistics.

NSCB embarked on the Intercensal Updating of Small Area Estimates (SAE) Project in 2006 through the World Bank Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building.

In 2012, NSCB continued to meet the needs of stakeholders by generating the 2009 City and Municipal level poverty estimates through the WB, Australian Agency for International Development and some funds from the national government.

The SAE released by NSCB served as one of the inputs/basis in several anti-poverty reduction programs/policies of the government both at the national and local levels.  /BRP (FREEMAN)