Northern Samar guv puzzled over worsening poverty in the province

TACLOBAN CITY, July 2 (PNA) –- The provincial government of Northern Samar is still puzzling on why poverty incidence in their province has worsened over the past nine years.

Governor Jose L. Ong said they will conduct a study to find out why more people in the province lived in poverty since 2006 despite government efforts to arrest the decade-old problem.

Among six provinces in Eastern Visayas, Northern Samar is the poorest in the first semester 2015 poverty survey, with an incidence of 61.6 percent, which means that six out of every 10 people in the province are poor.

The figure is higher than the poverty levels in 2006 (54.4 percent), 2009 (52.4 percent), and 2012 (53.1 percent).

Northern Samar is the fourth poorest province in the country, next to Lanao del Sur (74.3 percent), Sulu (65.7 percent), and Sarangani (61.7).

“I am worried that numbers will increase since the Philippines Statistics Authority did that survey on the first semester of last year or before typhoon Nona hit us,” Ong said.

Typhoon Nona struck the province in December 2015, affecting 112,655 families and left a trail of destruction across all sectors amounting to Php14.39 billion, according to the post-disaster assessment of the Office of the Civil Defense.

The disaster destroyed 109,206 with a combined cost of Php3.18 billion. Nona was considered as the strongest typhoon to hit Northern Samar in 34 years, according to Ong.

The official, who is in his second term as governor, said they expect poverty incidence to increase with majority of coconut farmers have lost their main source of income.

Coconut is second heavily damaged crop next to rice with Php51.8 million damages incurred, 512,402 damaged trees and affecting around 3,700 coconut farmers.

Overall, farming sector suffered Php272.74 million losses due to Nona’s wrath.

“Our main concern is the affected coconut farmers since it take three to five years for them to recover,” he added.

As a short-term solution, the local government promotes inter-cropping to provide alternative income to badly-affected farmers.

Northern Samar is one of the three provinces in Samar Island. It is a part of Eastern Visayas region. The province is classified as second class, and has a total land area of 3,498 square kilometers. It is composed of 24 towns and 569 barangays with Catarman as the provincial capital.

Northern Samar is exposed to a range of natural hazards such as storm surges, floods, landslides, liquefaction, earthquakes and tsunamis. About 70 percent of the towns are highly susceptible to these natural hazards. (PNA)

PGL/SARWELL Q. MENIANO