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Owing
to the remarkable
increase in its Human
Development Index (HDI)
and an improved poverty
incidence, the Province
of Ilocos Norte remained
the province in the
Ilocos Region with the
best quality of life in
the year 2000.
Ilocos
Norte had an HDI of
0.684 to improve 0.038
points from its 1997 HDI
of 0.646. It was the
only province in the
Ilocos Region which had
an improved rank from
1997 to 2000 and was
even better than the
country’s HDI of
0.656. While Ilocos
Norte continued its
improvement in its HDI,
Ilocos Sur and
Pangasinan slipped from
their previous rankings
with Pangasinan sliding
5 ranks lower in 2000
from its 13th
place in 1997. La Union
maintained its 11th
place despite improving
its HDI by 0.029 points.
Among
the top ten performing
provinces in HDI, Ilocos
Norte posted a growth of
5.8 percent together
with Rizal. The growth
was second only to
Bulacan which posted a
faster growth of 8.3
percent.
Using
the UNDP criteria in
classifying countries
based on the HDIs, all
of the provinces in the
Ilocos Region were had
medium human development
index (HDI value of
between 0.500 and
0.799). An HDI value of
0.800 and above is
considered to be high
while an HDI value of
below 0.500 is
considered low. Human
development in the
Philippines is
considered medium with a
0.656 it posted in 2000.
Meanwhile,
all provinces in the
region, except Ilocos
Sur, showed improvements
in their poverty
situation. Ilocos Norte
was still best with
around only 18 per 100
families living below
the poverty threshold of
P13,096. Among the
region’s provinces, it
was the only one which
had a better poverty
incidence than the
country’s incidence of
28.4 percent. Ilocos Sur
worsened from 28.7
percent |
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in
1997 to 30.6 percent in
2000. The biggest
improvement was posted
by La Union taming its
poverty incidence by 3.8
percent. La Union,
however, remained the
province with the
highest poverty
incidence at 33.7
percent despite the
improvements it showed
in its HDI. Poverty
incidence is the
proportion of families
whose annual per capita
income fall below the
annual per capita
poverty threshold which
is the minimum income
required by a family to
satisfy the nutritional
requirements and other
basic needs.
But
while Ilocos Norte had
the best quality of
life, Pangasinan,
needing only around
P6,236 monthly minimum
income for a family of
six to meet their food
and basic needs, was the
province most
inexpensive to live
with. Ilocos Sur was the
most expensive needing
P6,726 minimum monthly
income for a family of
six to sustain their
needs.
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