Interesting Statistics from the NSCB

Statistics? Sa spelling pa lang parang gusto mo na mag-nosebleed.  Sa iba naman tulad ko nagkaroon ng subject na ganyan nung kadete, kung maari lang mabura sa isip ang not-so-happy experience of those days na halos d na makatulog sa kaka-review or make sense of the computations and problems na dapat sagutin para pumasa dito.

Actually matagal ko ng hinahanap ang data na ito.  Matagal ko ng iniisip kung magkano ba talaga ang kelangan nating income para magastusan ang ating pangunahing pangangailangan.

Sabi sa site ng NSCB, ‘poverty threshold’ is the minimum income/expenditure for a family/individual to meet their basic food/non-food requirement.  Sa latest release ng NSCB, year 2009 pa lang ang kanilang survey (see link here http://www.nscb.gov.ph/poverty/2009/table_1.asp) where the annual per capita poverty threshold in pesos is pegged at P16,841.00. 

Meron din nilabas na survey called ‘food threshold’ which is defined as the minimum income/expenditure to meet their basic food requirements.  The 2009 survey result (link here http://www.nscb.gov.ph/poverty/2009/table_3.asp) pegged the food threshold at P11,686.00.

From this link http://www.nscb.gov.ph/poverty/2009/Presentation_RAVirola.pdf  I would like to share some slides from the 2009 Official Poverty Statistics presented by Dr Virola (Sec Gen of the NCSB).

Table 1

Meanwhile, a family of needs the ff in order to be considered 'out of poverty'.

Table 2

Table 3

So what, ano naman kung me mga threshold na ganito?

Aba, the implications of these are the ff:

1.  kung ang monthly income ng family mo (if for example, 5 kayo, as seen in the table 3) ay below 7017 php, ikaw ay kasama sa mga sinasabing ‘living below poverty line.'

2.  kung ang monthly income ng family mo (same example as 1) ay below 4869 php, kulang pa yan para pambili ng pagkain nyo.

Kung ikaw ay isang CO ng unit or chief/officer sa isang opisina, tignan mo kaya ang take home pay ng tropa nyo. Baka magulat ka sa matatanto nyo.  Okay lang kung may trabaho or other source of income ang kanyang wife or kaanak – pano kung sahod lang nya ang inaasahan ng pamilya?

The more important question here, if you are the soldier (with income below the mentioned threshold) or officer with personnel na ganun ang situation – ano gagawin nyo?

Ito ay maikling palaisipan lamang – ngunit maaring magbago ng iyong pananaw at plano sa kinabukasan.

Ang inyong lingkod,

Balitangsink

"Kapag may kaalaman, may kalayaan.”

The Soldier and his Money

This question has been languishing in my mind for quite some time already. Why are most soldiers deep in debt? Why in their dire need for money almost ALWAYS resort to applying for loans?

I have been looking at data provided by friends in Finance Center, PA for these past months. As of June 2011, 95 % of soldiers have loans whose monthly payments amount to 3k on the average/month. In my former unit 3Mech Bn, almost 24% of the its enlisted personnel (EP) has a take home pay of below 6k a month not including the Subsistence Allowance (SA) (data from July 2011 payroll).

I, being a mother of 2 children, find it hard to think how my family would live with only 6k per month as a budget. Knowing for a fact that for most soldiers, they are the sole breadwinner in their families and their wives have no paying jobs unless they find other means of earning money like having a small sari-sari store or buy-and-sell scheme on the side but these cases are more the exception than the norm.

This concern has thus spawned this idea of mine, to write a blog where our soldiers can find useful information about many topics on money, about loans, capcon/dividends that they typically wouldn’t even care to know – but they should. What I will write here will come mostly from my personal research, experience, interviews and stories from people in the military service i have known and hopes that I may be able to reach more people, educate them and help improve their financial lives.

To my readers, if you have friends who are soldiers, please share them this blog. If you are a leader in your own unit or office, please share this blog too and my advocacy as well. If you are a soldier, congratulations and bless you for finding this blog! I hope we can help each other starting to today and in the future.

Ang inyong lingkod,

Balitangsink

“Kapag may kaalaman, may kalayaan.”