Mountain Province Cordillera’s ‘poorest’

By Aldwin Quitasol

BAGUIO CITY -- Officer-in-Charge Aldrin Federico R. Bahit Jr. of the Philippine Statistics Cordillera said Mountain Province had the highest poverty threshold among the provinces of the region in 2015.

According to Bahit, this is attributed to  higher prices of goods and services in the province compared to other parts of the region.

He said that based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) which he said is being monitored by PSA per week, MP registered the movement of prices at 8.0 index points.

CPI is the general measure of the change in the average retail prices of a market basket or collection of goods and services commonly purchased by average Filipino household. Bahit said the Cordillera CPI in March 2016 is 141.1 which is higher by 2.7 index points from last year's 138.4.

        Cordillera Region has six provinces. They are Benguet, MP, Kalinga, Abra, Ifugao and Apayao. There are two cities in the region, Baguio and Tabuk.

Bahit said that MP has an inflation rate of 5.6% as of March 2016 compared to 2.0 % of March last year. This is being followed by the provinces of Ifugao, Kalinga, and Abrad with 3.8, 2.9 and 2.4 respectively.

He added that based on family expenditure, the poverty incidence of Cordillera decreased in 2015 compared to 2012 from 28.7 to 26.7 %. He noted however that MP and Benguet both increased in poverty incidences with 6.0% in 2012 to 9.5% for Benguet while 45.3% in 2012 to 49.9% for MP. He said that they are still processing data on Cordillera poverty incidence for the 1st quarter of 2016.

Bahit said the purchasing power of peso (PPP) in the Cordillera dropped to 71 centavos from 72 centavos in 2015.  

        According to PSA-Cordillera data, the province of Apayao has the highest peso value at 76 centavos followed by Abra at 75 centavos ansKalinga at 73 centavos. Mountain Province he said has the lowest value of peso at 67 centavos.