The Impact of Poverty to the Well-Being
of Barangay Pamahawan Residents
The term poverty refers to the state in which
individuals or communities do not have
sufficient financial resources to meet the
most basic needs of life, such as food,
shelter, and health care. It involves both
absolute, which means being unable to
afford the basics needs of life, and relative,
which measures standard of living against
the society’s average. Poverty is a complex
and insidious determinant of health caused
by systemic factors that can persist for
generations in a family. Beginning before
birth and continuing throughout an
individual’s life, poverty can significantly
impact health and health outcome.
Understanding wellbeing and poverty is the first step to
reducing poverty. Meaningful definitions are important in
order to identify the causes of poverty, the objectives of
poverty reduction, and the scope of what should be done.
Declining poverty means increasing wellbeing. Both
terms are interwoven and look at the same problem from
two different sides. A broad definition of poverty comes
very close to ‘a lack of wellbeing’. So both terms are used
in this report almost interchangeably. For instance, if
people completely lack wellbeing, they are in poverty. On
the other hand, if they are in a state of high wellbeing,
their lives are characterized by prosperity, happiness and
satisfaction.
Although this definition is not conventional, it is useful
when combining different national concepts and helpful
when assessing and analyzing various dimensions of
poverty. Furthermore, ‘poverty often has a negative
connotation of passivity, incompetence or backwardness
and the use of the term can be offensive or demeaning.
The term 'wellbeing' allows discussion of poverty in more
positive ‘poverty should be read as ‘lack of wellbeing and
‘wellbeing as ‘reduced poverty.
According to the Joseph Rowntree (2009). Poverty is the
gap between resources and needs, and it is deepened not
only by a lack of resources – most obviously income – but
also by the cost of obtaining minimum needs. Alleviating
poverty requires improving income as well as reducing
the costs of meeting basic needs.
The Philippines has made progress In reducing poverty,
with a decrease from 49.2% in 1985 to 18.1% in 2021.
This is due to structural transformation and GDP growth,
but not as fast as Thailand and Vietnam. Economic
inequality persists, with not everyone having equal access
to essential services. The Philippines’ cash transfer
program, the “Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program,”
provides financial assistance to the poorest families to
meet their nutritional, health, and educational needs. The
Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)
executes this program to break the intergenerational
poverty cycle.
So, how do we reduce poverty? One of the most
common poverty interventions is the cash transfer
program. A cash transfer is a direct transfer of
payment of money to an eligible individual for
humanitarian assistance, which provides a lifeline
for poor families facing threats to their health and
well-being. The Philippines had its own cash transfer
program called “Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino
Program” (4Ps). Is a government initiative that
provides financial assistance or cash grants to the
poorest families to help them meet the nutritional,
health, and educational needs of their children. The
goal of the program is to alleviate the immediate
needs of the poor and break the intergenerational
poverty cycle. The Department of Social Welfare
and Development (DSWD) executes the program
that is designed to meet health, nutrition, and
educational needs of vulnerable households.
A study by the Philippine Institute of
Development Studies (PIDS) in 2014
revealed that the 4Ps has no significant
negative impact on work effort of
household heads, it has increased school
participation of children, and resulted in
increased consumption of education-
related goods. On the succeeding wave of
the study in 2021, PIDS found out that it
has a long term positive impact on health
and well-being. However, these impacts
can be extended further if recipients can
be equipped and trained on how they can
maximize the cash transfers given to
them.
The program has one of the most
comprehensive poverty targeting
databases in the world today, covering
75% of the country’s population. It has
been used extensively to identify poor
and near-poor beneficiaries for national
and local government programs. Started
in 2007, the government expanded the
program in December 2016 to reach a
total of 20 million Filipinos belonging to
4.4 million households. The program
benefits about 20% of the population, the
majority of the nation’s poor. 9 million
children are currently benefiting from the
program, 1.9 million of which are in high
school.
The program has also achieved almost
universal enrollment for elementary age
children of 4Ps households. Social
protection programs, Pantawid included,
have cushioned the poor from the adverse
impacts of various shocks the country
experienced over the past six years. A
study estimates that the program has led
to a poverty reduction of 1.4 percentage
points per year or 1.5 million less poor
Filipinos. The 4Ps is currently the world’s
fourth-largest CCT program based on
population coverage. It complements the
government’s other development
priorities such as generating jobs and
creating livelihood opportunities for the
poor.
The Philippines faces a significant
poverty Issue, with over a third of
children below 18 living below the
poverty line in 2009. This issue is
particularly concerning for children
in their critical stages of
development. Data from national
surveys and government records
shows that around 10 million face
multiple types of deprivation, with
several areas consistently lag
behind. Longitudinal data also
shows that families often move
between poverty, posing risks to
children’s wellbeing.
Reference
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well-being-is-hard-to-ignore-51378
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news/equipping-the-poor-its-impact-on-humans-
and-the-natural-environment
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philippines/brief/faqs-about-the-pantawid-
pamilyang-pilipino-program
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