Agusan del Sur is no longer included in the list of the top 16 poorest provinces in the country. Per latest reports, the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) cited that poverty incidence level of Filipinos almost remained unchanged between 2006 and 2012.
Figures of the first semester last year show a national poverty incidence rate of 27.9 percent, slightly lower than 28.8 percent in 2006 and 28.6 in 2009. NSCB comes out with the report every three years.
However, the province’s poverty incidence rate dropped from 51.3 percent in 2009 to 38.6 percent last year, a significant reduction of 12.9 percent which warranted it’s exclusion from the infamous roll.
Agusan del Sur ranked 9 in the list in 2006 and third in the 2009 NSCB survey.
In a published report by a leading national newspaper, the Philippine Daily Inquirer on March 24, the province was no longer in the list.
Data shows the top 16 poorest provinces are Lanao del Sur (68.9 percent), Apayao (59.8 percent), Eastern Samar (59.4 percent), Maguindanao (57.8 percent), Zamboanga del Norte (50.3 percent), Davao Oriental (48 percent), Ifugao (47.5 percent), Sarangani (46.5 percent), Negros Oriental (45.3 percent), Masbate (44.2 percent), North Cotabato (43.9 percent), Northern Samar (43.7 percent), Bukidnon (43.3 percent), Lanao del Norte (42.5 percent), Sultan Kudarat (41.6 percent), and Cotabato City (41.5 percent).
On the same day, the Philippine Star, another national daily quoted NSCB Secretary General Jose Ramon Albert saying that the poverty incidence rate in Region I and Caraga have gone down.
NSCB has yet to come out with the full year report for 2012 on the poverty survey on the third quarter of this year according to Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan.
In relation to this positive development, National Statistics Office Provincial Director Jake Appellado said the data of NSCB indicate that the province is in the right track for progress. He added the drop in the poverty incidence show that the development plans and programs are in place and working out well.
Governor Adolph Edward “Eddiebong” Plaza has implemented various interventions in the province to address poverty and uplift the economic condition of the marginalized Agusanons especially in the hinterlands where incidence of poverty is relatively high.
Investments on economic, human resource and infrastructure development and programs on poverty reduction like the Upland Sustainable Agro-forestry Development (USAD), Baka Alang sa Kauswagan sa Agusan del Sur (BAKAS), Provincial Swine Upgrading Program (PSUP), Boosted Utilization of Grains in Agusan del Sur (BUGAS), Intensified and Sustainable Development of Aquaculture (ISDA), Program on Reform and Utilization of Trees in Agusan del Sur (PRUTAS), Agusan Goat Program (AGP), Provincial Scholarship Program, Pagtuon Project, among others were instituted under his administration and are slowly reaping positive results.
