27 January 2025 – Guimaras. The poverty incidence among the population or the proportion of poor Filipinos in Guimaras, whose per capita income is insufficient to meet their basic food and non-food needs, reduced to 6.5% in 2023 from 10.0% in 2021, translating to 7 out of 100 Guimarasnons have income below the amount needed to buy their basic food and non-food needs, based on the preliminary results of the 2023 Family Income and Expenditure Survey conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority.

About 12,380 Guimarasnons had income below the poverty threshold in 2023, translating into a reduction of 6,360 individuals from the 18,740 individuals in 2021. The 2023 level is lower than the 17,190 Filipinos in 2018, a pre-pandemic period.

Moreover, the Guimaras poverty incidence among families in 2023 was estimated at 3.8%, a reduction of 47.9% from the 2021 level, translating that about 4 out of 100 families have income below the amount needed to buy their basic food and non-food needs in 2023. The 2023 level is lower by 3.5 and 3.0 percentage points compared to 2021 and 2018, respectively.

“The annual per capita poverty threshold in Guimaras at PhP30,847 translates that a family of five needed at least PhP12,853 monthly income, on average, to meet both the basic food and non-food needs in a month, lower than the 13,801 monthly income, required for Western Visayas,” Provincial Statistics Officer Nelida B. Losare said.

Losare further discussed that the income gap in Guimaras in 2023 was estimated at around 9.1%, meaning the income disparity between the highest and lowest earners had been getting lower, showing a decrease of 6.7 percentage points from the 15.8% income gap in 2021.

“The poverty gap refers to the income shortfall (expressed in proportion to the poverty threshold) of families with income below the poverty threshold, divided by the total number of families,” Losare added.

For the Food Threshold, a family of five in Guimaras needed at least PhP9,059 pesos, on average, to meet their family’s basic food needs in a month in 2023, showing an increment of 11.9% from the 2021 level estimated at PhP8,096 pesos and an increase of 20.4% from the 2018 level, estimated at PhP7,523 pesos.

The comparative poverty incidence among population across Provinces disclosed that Aklan got the lowest poverty incidence among the five provinces of Region 6, estimated at 4.6%, followed by Guimaras and Capiz at 6.5% and 13.4%, respectively. Three provinces recorded more than 13% poverty incidence among population in 2023, with Antique posted the highest at 18.9%. See Figure 1.

The poverty incidence among Filipino families was lowest in Aklan at 3.1% in 2023, the lowest among the six provinces of the Western Visayas region. Guimaras came in next with 3.8%. The rest of the provinces posted double-digit poverty incidence among families. Antique got the highest at 13.8%.

Looking at the graph, four provinces of the Region managed to reduce their poverty incidence among families in 2023, while one province (Capiz) recorded an increment of 3.7 percentage points. Antique and Iloilo posted a reduction but remained at a double-digit. Moreover, Aklan posted a significant drop of 10.8 percentage points, while Guimaras managed to reduce by 3.7 percentage points.

In 2023, Iloilo and Antique belonged to Cluster 5, while the provinces of Aklan, Capiz, and Guimaras fell under Cluster 6.

Furthermore, Aklan improved to a least poor cluster in 2023 from cluster 5 in 2021, while Antique and Iloilo remained at cluster 5. Capiz and Guimaras remained at cluster 6.