Poverty in the Philippines

Abstract

Poverty remains as a formidable challenge for the Philippine Government. Despite the Government's various development plans, policies and programs from 1962 through to 1997 that addressed poverty, the number of Filipinos living below the poverty line is still substantial. In the attempt to gain a deeper understanding of this policy problem this thesis is concerned with considering various aspects - but only aspects - of poverty in the Philippines. This is done by considering a range of pertinent issues that provide results that add to our understanding of poverty in the Philippines. The thesis is broken up into three parts. In Part I the discussion is concerned with determining if the alleviation of poverty is seen as being an issue of major social importance in the Filipino community. This issue is explored by determining if diverse groups of Filipinos could arrive at a consensus in the selection of a principle of distributive justice under conditions of economic uncertainty. The experimental results presented indicate the remarkable result that a representative sample, drawn from the Filipino community, can agree unanimously on a single system of justice in distribution - a system that sets as a priority the elimination of poverty. These results have implications for political philosophy, social choice theory and policy implementation in the Philippines. In Part II some of the possible causes of poverty in rural Philippines are considered. Chapter 3 is concerned with the analysis of provincial data to determine what factors cause the levels of household income per capita and poverty to vary across provinces in the Philippines. In contrast, the contents of Chapter 4 provide an analysis of information provided by detailed surveys carried out in two diverse villages. These two chapters provide new results and confirm other results scattered throughout an extensive relevant literature. Broadly these results suggest that the alleviation of poverty will require that appropriate policy action needs to be mounted simultaneously on a number of relevant fronts. Part III is concerned with determining some of the possible consequences that flow from poverty in the Philippines. In Chapter 5 use is made of provincial data. There it is indicated, for instance, that the reduction of poverty probably needs to be part of any program that attempts to reduce infant and child mortality rate, and the total fertility rate. In Chapter 6 attention turns to consider the influence of poverty, after allowing for other relevant factors, on the age-adjusted height for age of young children - a variable which is a sensitive indicator of the level of well-being for a community. Micro data is employed. It is shown that poverty, widely redefined (to include not just household income measures but also the level of education in the family and a range of other considerations), has a clear influence on the age-adjusted height for age of young children. In the concluding chapter, Chapter 7, the major findings are presented and policy implications are drawn from these findings. Show more