by KAROL ILAGAN

Of the projects altogether valued at P138.5 billion in total, about 99 percent were awarded only beginning 2004. This was the year presidential elections were held, with Gloria Macapagal Arroyo clinching the right to a six-year term of office.

	A typical rural road. [photo by Ruby Shaira Panela]

PART CRAGGY mountains and part deep valleys, Apayao in the Philippine north is probably not a place for those seeking an easy life. Yet up until six years ago, the ruggedly beautiful province had a relatively respectable poverty incidence rate of 16.8 percent, which meant more than 80 percent of the families there were consistently meeting their basic needs without much problem.

By 2006, however, majority of Apayao families were struggling, with the province posting a poverty incidence rate of 57.5 percent. As a result, Apayao had also become the newest entry in the Philippines’ list of 10 poorest provinces, and even earned the dubious honor of clinching rank No. 4.

Poverty incidence is the proportion of those considered poor to the total number of families. The term “poor” meanwhile refers to those whose incomes fall below the threshold identified by the government, or those who cannot afford their minimum basic needs in a sustained manner.

There are several possible reasons why many of Apayao’s families suffered a decline in fortune. But those reasons could not have included a lack of new infrastructure projects, which have long been believed to be among the tools that could help alleviate poverty by providing greater access to basic needs and services.

Based on PCIJ’s review of contracts awarded by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) under the Arroyo government, Apayao was among the top 10 provinces ranked according to their infrastructure spending per capita from 2000 to 2005.

What is curious, though, is that Apayao is not the only province on that list that has ended up with more residents in dire straits. In fact, five of those top 10 provinces experienced a rise in their poverty incidence rates. (see Table 1)

Table 1: Top Ten Provinces by Value of DPWH Contracts Per Capita (2000-2005) Source: DPWH, NSCB a – still included in Basilan Notes: The DPWH posts 1,102 pages of data on awarded contracts on its web site. It has not responded to requests from the PCIJ for the electronic spreadsheet version of the data. To acquire the information, PCIJ developed a software application that copies each of the web pages and compiles the data into comma-separated values (CSV) format. Siquijor, Northern Samar, provinces in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao and cities in the National Capital Region were not included in the ranking. Projects here were undertaken either by the nearby local engineering district or the DPWH regional unit.
PROVINCE	DPWH CONTRACT PER CAPITA (in pesos)	POVERTY INCIDENCE AMONG FAMILIES (%)
		2003	2006
Mt. Province	1,080.36	46.7	45.0
Isabela City (in Basilan)	647.37	a	a
Apayao	530.27	16.8	57.5
Guimaras	386.19	32.7	35.2
Surigao del Norte	374.64	54.5	53.2
Mindoro Occidental	374.49	40.9	46.5
Biliran	366.58	46.5	31.4
Quirino	330.31	24.1	15.9
Ifugao	311.13	28.1	30.9
Catanduanes	296.94	31.8	37.3
Philippines	160.7	24.4	26.9

When the PCIJ expanded its review, it saw that despite the surge of civil works funds nationwide in the last seven years, poverty in general not only persisted, it even worsened.

The most recent official poverty statistics cover only up to 2006, when the country posted a poverty incidence of 26.9 percent, up from 24.4 percent in 2003. Yet indications are that when the latest poverty figures are produced by the end of this year, there will be little improvement to be seen, most probably because of sheer inefficiency, misplaced priorities, and persistent corruption.

This is even as the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) points to the fast-growing population and the failure of household incomes to rise as fast as commodity prices as a major reason why more Filipino families are joining the ranks of the poor.

In fact, the PCIJ had conducted its review of the DPWH contracts online database as a follow-up to the January 2009 report of the World Bank’s anti-corruption unit, the Department of Institutional Integrity (INT), which established collusion and corruption in Bank-funded road projects implemented by the public works department.

Contractors and government officials also say that as much as 30 percent to 50 percent of the cost of infrastructure projects continues to be lost to corruption.

At the same time, the latest Commission on Audit (COA) report on the DPWH shows that as of 2007, infrastructure projects undertaken by various DPWH office/districts totaling P1.036 billion were not completed within the specific contract time.

Moreover, notes the COA report, many infrastructure projects had either defects or deficiencies that, if not corrected, may result in the waste of as much as P48.4 million of state funds.

NO RELIEF FOR POOR
The emphasis on road projects by the Arroyo administration may not be that helpful as well in raising incomes of ordinary farmers who are among the country’s poorest.

Former and current government officials attest to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s predilection for road-building as part of her administration’s legacy, although DPWH Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. also says that the government’s ever-increasing infrastructure projects are aimed partly at easing poverty.

But while Dr. Aleli Bawagan, community development professor at the University of the Philippines, acknowledges that roads are important to make production more efficient, she says that as far as she knows, farm workers do not earn significantly from such investments.

Indeed, while farm workers nationwide each earned an average of P126.3 a day in 2003, they were taking home P121.15 each in 2007, despite a sudden increase in state infrastructure projects after 2003, and even a rise in the production of key crops such as rice, corn, and coconut between 2003 and 2007.

According to its online registry of contracts, the DPWH awarded 27,535 civil-works contracts amounting to over P138.5 billion in total from 2000 to 2008. Of that number, about 99 percent were awarded only beginning 2004. This was the year presidential elections were held with Arroyo clinching right to a six-year term of office.

Bawagan, though, points out: “The roads are there, but it’s not the farmers who benefit. It’s the businessmen — the ones who have the mills, the trucks, the threshers.”

She agrees that farm workers could earn more if they engage in trading, but she says this would require a different set of skills and, of course, entail costs. “There is no problem when you talk of production,” says Bawagan, “but (with) the business side, they (farm workers) need training, capitalization, loan support, and infra support.”

By the latter, she means items specific for agriculture production. “For example,” she says, “rice production could be more efficient if facilities such as irrigation structures, dryer, mills — mobile mills, in particular — are made more accessible to them.”

Bawagan is also not impressed by the jobs generated by infrastructure projects as a way of alleviating poverty. “It’s short-term,” she observes, “and what you want are sustainable things.”