Senator Loren Legarda has hailed Antique’s progress in reducing poverty, saying it is a testament to the fact that sustainability, local enterprise and community-based livelihoods can drive effective and lasting recovery.

Legarda, former representative of the lone district of Antique and who continues to pursue the province’s development from the Senate, has been pushing for policy direction, legislative priorities, and program investments in the province’s long-term development gains.

From being among the Philippines’ poorest provinces, Antique is now emerging as a potential development model for inclusive, livelihood-centered and resilient growth.

“When you develop what a municipality already possesses, value chains form organically,” Legarda noted.

“Economic activity reinforces stewardship and grounds livelihood in domestic sources,” she stressed.

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) now show that poverty incidence among families in Antique dropped from 18.2 percent in 2021, at the height of pandemic-related economic disruption, to 13.8 percent in 2023, equivalent to roughly 20,800 poor families, signaling substantial progress in restoring incomes and stabilizing communities.

This brings the province close to its pre-pandemic level of 12.9 percent in 2018 and places Antique 38th out of 84 provinces in terms of highest poverty incidence, within the national median.

Legarda credited the gains to deliberate, ground-up strategies she has long advocated, ones that prioritize local livelihoods, cultural development, and sustainable resource use over externally driven growth models.

Earlier, the senator strongly pushed for the modernization of the University of Antique by establishing Maritime Virtual and Augmented Reality laboratory, DOST TechnoHub, and industrial centers like the UA Bamboo Center and Brick Making facilities.

From 2017 to the present, Antique has continuously benefited from Legarda’s sustained advocacy and direct mobilization of government support, including DOLE's Kabuhayan, TUPAD and Government Internship Program, CHED scholarships, DSWD’s AICS and Sustainable Livelihood Program, DOST’s Community Empowerment thr ough Science and Technology, DTI’s Shared Service Facilities, BFAR-distributed fiberglass boats and fishing equipment, DOH Medical Assistance, upgrades to Angel Salazar Memorial General Hospital (ASMGH), Culasi District Hospital, and the Justice Calixto O. Zaldivar Memorial Hospital, and establishing Libertad’s first polyclinic in seven decades.

Legarda also strategically transformed Antiqueños’ traditional crafts into competitive commerce by going beyond supporting diverse MSMEs, ranging from food and fish processing to bamboo and pottery production.

The Province of Antique has also recorded marked improvement in poverty reduction since the height of the pandemic, reflecting steady recovery and the strengthening of locally rooted livelihood strategies that Legarda has consistently supported and advanced.

“The pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities of economies that are overly dependent on external flows,” Legarda said.

“In Antique, recovery was anchored on what communities already knew how to do and what the land could sustainably provide,” the lawmaker stressed.