16 Social Services Budget, 2010–2015

In the impact evaluation study conducted by the DSWD and World Bank in 2012, it was found that:

The program is also achieving its objectives by allowing households to invest more in meeting the health and education needs of their children. Pantawid Pamilya is changing the spending patterns of poor households, with beneficiary households spending more on health and education and less on adult goods such as alcohol… However, the study was unable to identify a program impact on aggregate consumption/expenditures, even though expenditures on education and health increased and results from some areas suggest an increase in savings. Further studies, which will require collection of detailed consumption data, are required to develop a deeper understanding of the impact of Pantawid Pamilya on consumption and poverty. (World Bank, 2013)

Here is the irony in the GDP vs. poverty statistics. If high GDP is a measure of poverty alleviation, then it appears that the Philippine economy had a marked increase in being out of poverty, with its GDP of 6.3% being the highest for the five-year period of the presidency. Yet, with a high poverty rate of 21%, or some 25 million still living in poverty with a gini coefficient or a measure of inequality in incomes of 0.44393 or almost half of income concentration in those with top incomes, this still runs counter to the PNoy administration’s call for inclusive growth.

Citing of 2012 study by former NEDA secretary Cielito Habito, Raquiza notes that in 2011, 40 richest families accounted for 76% of the country’s GDP growth, reinforcing perceptions of an oligarchic economy. She further illustrated that over the past decade, “those who made it to the top of the Forbes list tripled their net worth, and those who made the biggest leap did so in the service industries (e.g., utilities, property development, banking, telecom, BPOs)”.

Let us examine the unemployment or joblessness trends and other vulnerability dimensions related to unemployment in the country during the PNoy administration as the country pursues poverty alleviation and improved standards of living. Unemployment appears as one major factor that has impeded improvements in the poverty situation of the country.

Figure III.17 below shows the situation on poverty versus unemployment and underemployment from 2011 to 2016, where there was almost a fourth or 23% rate of combined unemployment and underemployment by January 2016, and a little over a fifth or 21.6% of the population living in poverty.

Further, as shall be discussed more below, the country had vulnerable employment plus underemployment of close to half the labor force (46%) in 2013, or midway in the PNoy administration.