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Ike Señeres

THE conventional method of measuring household poverty involves the use of an imaginary “basket of goods” wherein the capability of a household to afford the value of the imaginary basket is the criterion whether or not a household is below or above the poverty threshold or the poverty line. Although it is not exactly a replacement of the conventional method, the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) of the United Nations serves as an alternative method of measuring poverty, but this time based on the question whether or not a household has access to certain indicators. I have proposed “Facets” as an acronym for all the six indicators, meaning Floor, Assets, Cooking Fuel, Electricity, Toilets and Safe Water. The six indicators measure the living standards of people all over the world.

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In the case of assets, the indicator that is used is whether or not the household has ownership of certain “goods”. What that means is that a household is considered deprived if it does not own more than one radio, TV, telephone, bike, motorbike or refrigerator and does not own a car or truck. In the manner that it is used, it is implied that if a household is deprived of certain criterion, it is the same as saying that it has no access to those “goods”. As it is used, certain points are assigned each time there is no access or if there is a deprivation, and the total score will determine whether a household is poor or not, at least based on the multidimensional approach. Additional points are assigned to the health dimension that includes child mortality and nutrition, and to the education dimension that includes years of schooling and school attendance.

As far as I know, the Philippine government has not yet adopted the MPI as an alternative means of measuring poverty in this country, meaning to say that up to now, it is still using the “basket of goods” approach. As far as I also know, many countries make it a point to update the “contents” of the imaginary “basket of goods”, in order to adjust to the changing basic needs of their populations. For examples, many countries have already included such “basic” needs as Video Home System (VHS) players and mobile phones. Here in the Philippines, some sectors are starting to argue that internet is already a basic need, because it is already a necessity and no longer a luxury. That is the same argument for cellular phone loads, and it is very difficult to argue against that.

It goes without saying therefore that the households within an intelligent settlement should have either access to or ownership the six indicators, otherwise they could hardly be considered intelligent, so to speak. Upon closer examination however, it would appear that the last four criteria could possibly be provided for at the community level, instead of the household level. What that means is that Cooking Fuel, Electricity, Toilets and Safe Water could become communal utilities that could possibly become the money making or revenue generating businesses of village associations or local cooperatives. For example, cooking fuel in the form of biogas could be pipelined into the homes, as an alternative to individual Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) tanks. As another example, electricity could be provided by associations or cooperatives acting as Independent Power Producers (IPP).

As we already know it, there are already existing cooperatives that are distributing water to the households, by way of tapping their own water sources or buying from the local water districts. If and when distributed water is already available from any stable source, it would already be practical to consider the installation of public toilets, as an alternative to individual toilets at each household. Although some sectors would not welcome this idea, this could be a solution to the problem of providing more access to more households, considering the high costs of individualized toilets. Perhaps as an additional means of providing more accessibility, local villages or communities could look into community laundry facilities and community kitchens, since these two would also be logical extensions of distributed water.

Now that we know that the MPI already exists, we should now advocate it as an alternative approach to the “basket of goods” approach of measuring poverty. By comparison, the multidimensional approach is more indicative than the conventional approach, because it directly measures accessibility and not just affordability. Besides, the accessibility it measures is more specific, compared to the items in the imaginary basket that is not even fully declared what it consists of. According to official figures that supposedly uses the conventional approach; the poverty rate in the Philippines is less than 30%. If and when we will use the multidimensional approach, it is possible that this figure could even be reversed.

One advantage of the multidimensional approach is that the local governments and the civil society would have the opportunity to directly intervene in poverty reduction, by way of programs and projects that would increase access to the six indicators. That would be great for society in general, because we would see active participatory democracy in action, with everyone doing their part in poverty reduction one way or the other. On top of that, this will give online groups to become active in social networking sites to promote this advocacy.

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