Senator Ma. Josefa Imelda “Imee” R. Marcos, chairwoman of the Senate economic affairs committee, today said that paucity of data is one of the fundamental problems of fighting poverty.
Marcos, a former Ilocos Norte governor and congresswoman, conceded that there might be a welter of information from Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Department of Social Welfare (DSWD) and Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), among others, ‘’but we in fact don’t even know exactly who our poor are, where they live, why they are struggling, what we should do to help them.’’
‘’If there is so much we don’t know, how in heaven’s name can we end poverty in the Philippines in this generation?’’ she asked.’
Marcos said national agencies, and the Local Government Units (LGUs) as well, ‘’use different rubrics for measuring poverty - moving but oft-outdated income thresholds, individual vs. family vs. household, national survey, Listahanan, FIES, CBMS, a whole alphabet soup of metrics.’’
‘’Let’s get at least our data act together, then we can, as I truly believe we can, end poverty among Filipinos in this generation,’’ she added.