Eleven out of every 100 Dabawenyo families in Davao Region were considered poor or had income below that needed to buy the minimum requirement of basic food and non-food items in 2023, according to the latest survey conducted by the Regional Bureau of Statistical Services of of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA-). Davao).

Recent poverty data presented at the Regional Forum for the Dissemination of Official Poverty Statistics Data for the Full Year 2023 on Friday morning, October 25, 2024, showed that the incidence of family poverty, or the proportion of families with per capita income falling below the poverty line in the region it was at 11.3 percent in the previous year.

“The incidence of poverty among families in the Davao Region was observed to be higher than the national incidence in 2018 and 2023,” PSA-Davao Chief Statistician Randolph Anthony Gales, OIC-Regional Director, noted during the forum, stressing, also that the poverty incidence base is the percentage of all households and individuals whose per capita income or expenditure falls below the per capita poverty line.

Gales added that the projection was lower than the estimated poverty incidence rates of 11.9 percent in 2021 and 13.9 percent in 2018.

“In terms of numbers, Davao Region recorded about 165,410 poor families or families with income below the poverty line in 2023,” he said.

Based on the statistics, Zamboanga Peninsula had the highest incidence of poverty among families in 2023 at 24.2 percent, while Davao Region continued to have the lowest poverty rates among Mindanao regions.

Meanwhile, with 32.4 percent of the population living in poverty in 2023, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) had the highest rate.

“In terms of family and population subsistence, the highest incidences were recorded in Zamboanga in 2023 at 7.9 percent and 11.4 percent, respectively. During the same period, Davao Region had the lowest incidences of subsistence among families and individuals at 2.9 percent and 4.7 percent respectively,” Gales explained.

13,000 lei/month for a family of five “not poor”

According to recent estimates, a family of five in Davao Region would need to earn P157,607 in 2023, or an average of P13,134 per month, to cover their most basic food and non-food needs.

In 2023, Davao Region’s annual per capita poverty level was projected to be P31,521. This indicates that in 2023 a person needed to earn at least 2,627 lei per month or 432 lei per day to escape poverty. However, in 2023, it was anticipated that the annual per capita food threshold, or the amount of money needed to maintain demand for staple foods, would be £22,065.

This means that a Dabawenyo with a family of five would need to earn R110,323 a year, or R302 a day, to cover their basic food needs. Between 2021 and 2022, the region’s per capita poverty and food thresholds increased by an average of about 12%, or 4.0% per year. DEF