The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) announced that a family of five needs to budget more than P8,000 per month for affordable and nutritionally adequate food three times a day. But it’s hard to “swallow,” according to Batangas Representative Ralph Recto when he revealed how much such an amount would cost a person.
In Tina Panganiban-Perez’s report, the PSA said that a family with five members needs an income of P8,379.00 per month for affordable food and adequate nutrition, or the so-called daily food threshold.
Those living in Metro Manila are set higher, reaching P9,600.00 per month.
But for Rep Recto, it is hard to swallow the number released by the PSA because when calculated, it is said to come out to P279 per day or P93 for each meal for five people or P18 per person, the amount mentioned.
If this can be overcome, the congressman said in a statement that you will no longer be considered “food poor” or a family that is hungry.
“I am a fan of PSA reports, a devotee of their studies, a champion of their mandate, but this one I find hard to swallow,” said the former senator. “Even if it was taken in 2021, a Nobel winner in kitchenomics would find it hard then to whip up a meal for five that would meet nutritional standards on a P93 budget.”
Filipino family needs P8K a month to eat 3 times a day – PSA
In the report, a lady bought food for her family of five that will last for two weeks.
It is said that the lady’s purchases amounted to P5,000, or about P357 a day.
In the statement, Recto said he did not know what cuisines PSA based their food budget on.
“Even if that amount would be adjusted for inflation, in this era of ?400-a-kilo onions, I don’t think that P93 would be enough for one family super tipid meal,” said the lawmaker.
Because of this, Recto questions whether PSA really captures the true number of hungry and poor people in the country.
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