Palace on hunger survey: Duterte acknowledges poverty problem

Malacañang said on Tuesday that President Rodrigo Duterte‘s economic managers were working on ways to reduce poverty after a recent poll found that 2.5 million families experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months.

Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said Duterte, during his fourth State of the Nation Address, acknowledged that the government needed to raise six million Filipinos out of poverty.

“Hindi ba tinatanggap ni presidente iyon. Doon sa SONA niya, ‘di ba sinasabi niya, ‘na ito ang problema natin, may 6 na milyong Pilipino ang nasa poverty line. Kailangang gawan natin ito ng paraan.’ In other words, in-acknowledge niya, that is why our economic managers are doing something,” Panelo said at a news conference.

Duterte, in his SONA, asked Congress to pass tax reform measures aimed at supporting the government’s poverty alleviation programs.

The Palace spokesperson also pointed to the government’s ambitious “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure program, as well as efforts to improve foreign investments, as the administration's attempt to address the country's poverty problem.

Nevertheless, Panelo argued that poverty reduction had always been a challenge to any administration.

Poverty incidence dropped from 27.6 percent in the first half of 2015 to 21 percent in the first semester of 2018, according to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority. — DVM, GMA News