WESTERN Visayas is the fastest-growing regional economy in the Philippines. Its economy expanded by 6.4 percent to ₱683.44 billion, while family poverty incidence fell dramatically from 9.8 percent in 2023 to 5.2 percent.
Impressive. But growing for whom?
The Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev) Region 6 itself provides the uncomfortable reality behind the glowing statistics. Poverty and inequality continue to persist in Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas, or GIDAs.
That means Western Visayas can simultaneously be the country’s fastest-growing regional economy and still have communities largely watching prosperity from the sidelines. There lies the danger of becoming intoxicated with economic statistics.
Growth rates, gross regional domestic product and rankings are useful measures of economic performance. But they mean little to a poor family whose income barely covers food, to a farmer struggling to bring produce to market, or to residents of isolated barangays who still lack adequate roads, livelihood opportunities and access to essential services.
People cannot eat GDP. They cannot pay electricity bills with economic rankings. And a family struggling to make ends meet cannot be expected to celebrate a 6.4-percent growth rate simply because economists say the regional economy is booming. Economic growth becomes meaningful only when people feel it.
DEPDev-6 has therefore correctly thrown the challenge to local government units and regional agencies. It wants them to translate the Regional Development Plan 2023–2028 into concrete programs addressing poverty and inequality and to align their local plans and investments with regional development objectives.
LGUs should take that challenge seriously. If Western Visayas is indeed growing this rapidly, governors, mayors and other local officials should be able to show where the benefits are going.
Which poor barangays are receiving greater investment? How many sustainable livelihoods are being created? How many isolated communities are being connected to markets? How many poor families are moving permanently above the poverty threshold? How much of local government spending is actually directed toward communities that economic development has historically bypassed? These are better measures of economic success.
The decline in family poverty incidence from 9.8 percent to 5.2 percent is significant and deserves recognition. But it should never become an excuse for complacency. The remaining poor matter just as much.
Indeed, as poverty declines, government should become even more precise in finding those who remain trapped in it. The challenge should shift from broad poverty-reduction programs toward targeted interventions addressing the particular reasons certain communities continue to lag behind.
Western Visayas already has powerful growth drivers — job creation, tourism, IT-BPM expansion, infrastructure modernization, improved digital and energy connectivity, education and healthcare access, and stronger climate and disaster resilience. But development must not become geographically selective.
A region cannot congratulate itself for prosperity concentrated in its cities and commercial centers while communities beyond them struggle to catch up. Western Visayas does not need two economies — one modern, connected and prosperous, and another isolated, agricultural and poor.
This is where LGUs must prove their worth. Local development plans and annual budgets must answer a basic question: Are we spending public money where it can change the lives of those who need development most?
Western Visayas should certainly celebrate becoming the Philippines’ fastest-growing regional economy. But the real triumph will come when economic expansion reaches the farmer in the hinterlands, the fisherman in an isolated coastal village, the struggling worker, the small entrepreneur and the family whose community remains outside the region’s principal corridors of development.
The greater achievement is making sure the poorest Western Visayan can finally feel that prosperity in his pocket, on his table and in his future.
