IF poverty issues in the Philippines got one-tenth, or even just one-hundredth, of the attention that has been lavished by the media, the public and political leaders on the Pidal brouhaha or the Kris/Joey drama, the country would probably be able to achieve its Millennium Development Goals on poverty -- halving the 1990 income poverty incidence by 2015 -- much ahead of schedule. But the way things have been going, one would almost think that poverty alleviation is close to the bottom of everybody's priority scale.

Take the Annual Poverty Indicators Survey (APIS) undertaken by the National Statistics Office (NSO) since 1998. It is a nationwide survey (with results down to the provincial level) designed to provide data that can be used to assess the progress of the war against poverty. Previous to APIS, poverty was officially measured only once every three years in conjunction with the triennial Family Income and Expenditures Survey (FIES).

A pretty important undertaking, one would surmise, particularly since every politician and wannabe professes that waging a successful war against poverty is his main goal in life. So what happens? Well, despite the "Annual" in its title, the survey was not undertaken in 2001, due to budgetary constraints. Then, when some preliminary results of the 2002 APIS were released in early January -- yes, all of eight months ago -- the media did not pick it up. Everyone was too busy analyzing whether the President meant what she said about not being a candidate in the next elections.

Worse, even the government agencies concerned with poverty monitoring and program assessment seemed to have forgotten that the figures were available for analysis, because when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo gave her State of the Nation Address in July, no mention was made of the NSO findings. The poverty statistics she used were from the surveys by the Social Weather Stations research group, which were on self-rated poverty.

As it is, the final results are already available at the NSO, although they have yet to be officially published -- again, for lack of funds. We should give the data the attention they deserve, particularly since they provide us with hard information on how the war on poverty has been faring as well as an empirical basis for the assessment of the administration's poverty programs.

Recall that the 2000 FIES gave us the bad news that the war on poverty had suffered a setback: poverty incidence -- the percentage of Filipino families who did not have the income necessary to purchase basic food (2,000 calories/day) and non-food requirements -- had increased since 1997.

The 2002 APIS gives us better news. While there have been both gains and setbacks, there is little doubt that on the whole, Filipino families have improved the quality of their lives compared to 1999. Arguably the bottom 40 percent of Filipino families have also fared better on the whole in 2002 compared to three years before.

Let's look at the indicators for the bottom 40 percent of the families more closely. On the positive side, the data show the following:

• Some 84.9 percent of these households had heads who were gainfully employed, compared with 57.6 percent in 1999.
  
  
• A smaller percentage of families with children 5-17 years old found it necessary to use them as child labor (18.7 percent in 2002 versus 20.0 percent in 1999).
  
  
• A larger percentage of families with children 6-12 years old had them in elementary school (91.1 percent versus 90 percent). The same trend was found for families with children 13-16 years old -- a larger percentage had them studying in high school (87.1 percent versus 57.6 percent).
  
  
• Some 54.8 percent of the bottom families had houses with roof made of strong materials, an increase from 51.6 percent in 1999.
  
  
• The percentage of families with access to electricity increased from 47.4 percent to 55.9 percent.
  
  
• So did the percentage of families who owned TV sets (from 24.2 percent to 31.3 percent), refrigerators (from 8.5 percent to 10 percent), ranges or stoves (from20.3 percent to 22.4 percent), washing machines (from 3.0 percent to 3.7 percent) and cars (from 2.7 percent to 3.9 percent). Interestingly, a larger percentage of families in the bottom 40 percent owned cars rather than cellular phones (3.1 percent).
  
  
• And finally, the percentage of families with a member involved in at least one legitimate people's organization increased from 17.2 percent to 25 percent. This is an indicator of an empowerment process.
  
  

On the other hand, there were setbacks, too:

• The percentage of families who had access to safe drinking water went down from 71.5 percent to 70.2 percent, although in absolute terms, the number increased by 254,000 (in Metro Manila, the decrease was larger: from 77.1 percent in 1999 to 68.6 percent in 2002).
  
  
• The percentage of families with access to sanitary toilets also decreased, from 73.9 percent to 73.1 percent.
  
  
• So did the percentage of families with houses whose outer walls were made of strong materials (from 51.1 percent to 40.9 percent), and those who owned houses and lots (from 69 percent to 63.1 percent).
  
  
• To complete the picture, fewer families owned radio and stereo equipment (from 70.7 percent to 64.4 percent) between 1999 and 2002.
  
  

Aside from the foregoing welfare indicators, the 2002 APIS also provides clues with respect to the effectiveness of certain important government programs. For example, we find that the percentage of poor families who got their homes through a government program decreased from 2.9 percent to 1.8 percent, while the percentage acquiring lands through the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program increased from 25.8 percent to 26.4 percent.

Let the President draw her own conclusions. We can draw our own.