[Philippines] Gov’t data don’t show real poverty picture, say execs

from The Inquirer

BAGUIO CITY -- The government’s poverty statistics do not reflect the face of indigenous Filipinos, so it has started drafting new economic indicators that would help them find and assist the poor among them, according to a Malacañang official.

Thomas Killip, presidential assistant for Cordillera affairs, said the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples are drafting these guidelines that will measure what resources the IP poor can have access to.

Killip, a former mayor of Sagada, Mt. Province, said complete data about indigenous Filipinos should help government understand a constituency that has thrived below its radar for nearly a century.

Leilene Carantes-Gallardo, NCIP Cordillera director, said the new poverty indicators they are crafting respond to the “inadequate tools” the government uses to measure poverty.

She said the latest government economic report had failed to capture the true situation of indigenous Filipinos.

The Cordillera, which is home to various IP groups, showed significant improvement because it managed to reduce its poor families from 122,942 households in 1994 to 72,084 households in 2003, said Juan Ngalob, Cordillera director of the National Economic and Development Authority, at a Monday forum at the University of the Philippines Baguio.

But the general outlines of economic growth that the government has recorded, based on what Cordillerans consume and what they earn in a year, have failed to illustrate why indigenous Filipinos remain poor, Gallardo said.

“We develop indicators that would tell us if indigenous Filipinos have access to their ancestral lands. Do they exploit their own resources? Are they able to access education? And if they do, are they able to cope?” she said.

Gallardo cited Ifugao, judged as the fourth poorest province in the country, until revisions this year in the statistic methods removed it from the top five poorest provinces.

“The country judged Ifugao poor, but their own people found this puzzling because nobody was starving in the province. They planted and consumed their own food,” she said.

She said NCIP is also devising new rules that would help government safeguard its tangible and intangible heritage, such as local medicinal knowledge that can be taught in schools.

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chair of the UN Forum, has been pursuing research on how indigenous Cordillera knowledge can help improve the region’s functional literacy.

Corpuz also heads the Baguio-based Tebtebba Foundation, a research facility that has advocated the use of indigenous language and cultural materials in Cordillera classrooms.

Gallardo said the guidelines are primarily new rules that apply to indigenous Filipinos, who may not understand the applicability of modern laws, cultural references or technology on their lives.

The new data could also provide better ways to introduce health benefits to these communities. Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon