Bayan Muna Partylist’s Market Challenge Reveals P64 Isn’t Enough for Daily Food Needs
The Bayan Muna Partylist held a “Market Challenge” at Commonwealth Market in Quezon City to find out if P64 is enough to cover a person’s food needs for a day.
Over the past few days, The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) has become one of the most controversial topics online after claiming that Filipinos spending P64 a day for three meals were not food-poor. The agency’s statement received criticisms from netizens.
The Philippine Statistic Authority (PSA) National Statistician Claire Dennis Mapa said that P63.87 per person a day is ‘insufficient’. “It’s really insufficient but [the way] we set up the food threshold and the poverty threshold is the minimum basic needs, so it’s the least cost,” said Mapa.
Recently, Altermidya, a Facebook page shared photos of Bayan Muna members taking part in the challenge at the market. The post quickly went viral and elicited various reactions from the online community.
Last Saturday, August 17, the group Bayan Muna held a “market challenge” at Commonwealth Market in Quezon City. The goal of this activity was to see if P64 pesos is enough for one person’s daily food needs.
During the challenge, Malou showed what she could buy with the P64. She managed to get a packet of mung beans, one sweet potato, two bananas, a quarter of a kilo of rice, and some salt.
However, she explained that she actually needed P130 to buy everything on her list.
Through this challenge, it became clear that P64 is not enough to cover a Filipino’s daily food expenses. The experiment shows the difficulties many people face when trying to live on such a small amount of money.
In another post, PSA to review basis of P64 per person/day food threshold
The social media users expressed their reactions to the post:
