The Excluded Poor: How Targeting Has Left out the Poor in Peripheral Cities in the Philippines

Constrained by resource limitations and challenged by the increasing incidence ofpoverty in the country, the Philippine government embarked on an anti-povertyprogramme that sought to identify where the poorest people were, what were theirspecific needs, and how government and other stakeholders (e.g., non-governmentorganizations, international development agencies, and the private sector) shouldrespond to their pressing concerns. Despite deficiencies in methodology, povertystatistics in the Philippines have recently become not only as the means of identifyingthe most deprived regions or provinces, but also as a weather vane that points to whereresources and efforts need to be directed and how these are to be spent.This paper scrutinizes the gains of this approach with particular reference to the urbanpoor in two cities: Butuan, the capital city of Agusan del Norte, once home to the largestlogging operations in Mindanao, and Tagbilaran, the capital of the tourist province ofBohol