BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL G. BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – In Western Visayas, 536,829 households are categorized as poor, data from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) showed.
Negros Occidental recorded the highest number of poor households – 268,530 or 50 percent of the total. Iloilo had 150,793; Antique, 41,101; Aklan, 36,784; Capiz, 30,754; and Guimaras, 8,867 households.
The data was the result of the third round of the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) or Listahanan, an information system for identifying who and where the poor households are.
DSWD is mandated to update the Listahanan database every four years.
Arwin Razo, DSWD Region 6 assistant director, said that for this round, a total of 1,394,251 households were assessed through house-to-house interviews.
“This is equivalent to 38.5 percent of the total households assessed in the entire region. The corresponding identified poor individuals reached 2.8 million,” Razo said.
Thirty-five percent of the identified poor households are living in urban areas across the region, while the remaining percentage are located in rural areas.
“The bulk of poor households are in rural areas, 65 percent. This somehow indicates that poverty in Western Visayas is mostly rural,” Razo said.
In terms of housing conditions, 35.68 percent of the total households have light roofing materials like nipa, while 46 percent have light walls like bamboo, sawali, cogon, nipa, and anahaw.
Meanwhile, in their access to utilities, 16 percent of the poor households still use kerosene as their source of lighting, especially in remote communities; 18.2 percent use unsanitary toilet facilities; and 42.8 percent of them have no access to a safe water source, and the majority of them are dependent on shared, unpiped deep wells.
On the distribution of poor individuals among basic sectors, 48 percent or 1,391,147 are women; 48.2 percent or 1,397,530 are children; 807,448 or 27.9 percent are youth: 4.1 percent are senior citizens of 119,647; 3.1 percent are from indigenous people’s groups or 90,199; and 27,921 or 1 percent are persons with disabilities.
In terms of employment or occupation, 303,934 poor individuals in the region which corresponds to 10.5 percent are farmers and engage in animal production; 7.8 percent or 227,443 are in the formal sector or those working in private establishments and government offices or organizations; 5.4 percent or 157,394 are self-employed and unpaid family workers; and two percent or 59,336 are fisherfolks.
Razo pointed out that the profile presented is very useful for local government units and government agencies in planning and funding their health and sanitation programs and services. (DGB, WDJ)
