Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos said adopting policies that would help ease the lives of different kinds of people in need is key to addressing poverty.
Marcos noted how innovative ideas have allowed the province under her leadership to bring down poverty level to a mere 1 percent, a feat that deserves replication by local government units nationwide.
“Different needs require different kinds of responses. If we opted for a blanket approach to poverty, there won’t be any effect at all. The strategy works at the local level but it is doubtful if it would be effective at the national level,” she said.
“At the local level, we can be aggressive in pursuing such a strategy. And everybody has to join in this war against poverty,” she added.
Marcos said that for the so-called ‘Biblical poor’ – the elderly, the infirm, and the sick – subsidy funds have been set aside for them.
“We gave a face to poverty in Ilocos Norte. And we went to them, and came up with a non-traditional, unorthodox reclassification. It takes an entire village to join in the efforts to combat poverty,” she said.
Aside from the ‘Biblical poor,’ there are the seasonal poor and the breakthrough poor.
The seasonal poor are victims of calamities or nature’s forces, Marcos said.
“You provide them with work that pays out cash up front. Even if it is for a short time only, just to let the economy recover,” she said.
“We focused on the breakthrough poor – they are those about to free themselves from the grip of poverty. They are those with land growing cash crops and would be harvesting; those about to graduate from college and are about to land jobs, and those already with skills seeking work. These are the guys we focused on to tame poverty in Ilocos Norte. And somehow it worked,” Marcos said.