BAGUIO CITY, December 26 – Presidential Communications and Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Martin Andanar disclosed the government is right on track in sustaining the reduction in poverty incident in the country to 14 percent poverty predicted by concerned government agencies by the end of 2020.
Secretary Andanar cited the gains of the Duterte administration in reducing poverty incident in the country claiming it was able to reduce the 23 percent poverty incident in July 2016 to only 16 percent by the third quarter of this year.
He explained that over the past three and a half years, there were some 5.9 million poor families in the different parts of the country who were able to improve their living condition because of the sustained implementation of the various poverty alleviation programs of the government.
The PCOO chief claimed that based on the prevailing trend, the present administration is out to exceed its projected reduction of poverty to an initial target of 14 percent by the end of 2020 and probably much lower depending on the implementation of existing and additional poverty alleviation programs geared towards curbing the poverty in the countryside.
He claimed during the assumption into office of President Rodrigo Duterte last June 30, 2016, the country’s poverty incident was over 23 percent that prompted the Chief Executive to issue marching orders to the concerned government agencies to aggressively implement existing and additional poverty alleviation programs to help move a huge part of the poor population out of poverty.
According to him, the President has the heart for the poor thus one of the priority programs and projects of his administration is to cascade to the grassroots level the benefits of such programs so that people in the countryside can feel the presence of government to help them uplift their present living conditions and become contributors to increased economic activities in the rural areas.
He emphasized by the end of the President’s term on June 30, 2022, a significant number of poor Filipinos should have moved out of the poverty line through the remaining government interventions and for those with improved living condition to be able to help in empowering others to be resilient and able to uplift the living condition of their families in the coming years to become key contributors to the increased economic activities and sources of livelihood of the people in their respective places.
2019Secretary Andanar pointed out President Duterte and the members of his Cabinet remain committed to sustaining and even improving the implementation of the existing government interventions to help improve the living condition of the poor people in poverty-stricken communities in the country because moving people out from poverty will greatly help in improving economic condition of the country for it to become one of the fastest growing nations in the Southeast Asian region.