Sean Emmanuel Florendo 

The National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) clarified the misconception about the country’s food and poverty thresholds, saying that these are meant to help the government assess the effectiveness of their anti-poverty methods.

Photo Courtesy of NEDA/REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez.

In a statement on their official website released on August 15, NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balicasan explained that the threshold is a part of a wide set of tools used to assist the government to combat poverty in the long run. 

“These thresholds serve as part of a broader set of tools used to assess the country’s development progress and to measure the effectiveness of the government’s policies and programs in addressing poverty,” he noted.

Balicasan explained that these standards are not measures for desirable living, and should never be used as one.

“They are not, and were never intended to be prescribed budgets for a decent standard of living. They do not dictate how much a family should spend on food, nor do they provide an idea of a desirable household budget,” he added.

This clarification came after the NEDA has recently come under fire for releasing the threshold, with Filipinos saying that the standard is unrealistic and insulting.

The threshold stated that a family of 5 members must at least have an income of P9,581 in order to meet their basic food and non-food meets. 

When broke down into daily food expense amount, it will be P64 per day or P21 per meal.