PALO, Leyte – The Commission on Population (PopCom) reported that Eastern Visayas has the highest number of dependents among the 16 regions in the country which attributed to the slow pace of development.

In the recent survey, it showed that out of every 100 persons in the region, 84 of them are dependent to their employed family members who could provide their basic needs.

Merlyn Rodriguez, PopCom Eastern Visayas regional director, told Leyte Samar Daily Express that dependents are mostly children under the age bracket of 0 to 14 years old and elderly family members with age 65 above.

“If there are many dependent in the populace, it does not facilitate development,” Rodriguez stressed.

Population and housing census of the National Statistics Office disclosed that 41 percent of the region’s population are children, 54 percent are working group and only five percent elderly.

The PopCom regional chief aired her observation that there are those who belong to the working group (15 to 64 years old) who were added to the group of dependents since some of them are unemployed.

She added that there are many married persons in the region who are also dependent to their parents in their livelihood.

Next to Eaten Visayas with the highest ration of dependents is the Bicol region with 83 and Caraga with 80. The National Capital Region has the lowest number of dependents among the 16 regions in the country with only 53 in every 100 population.

Rodriguez said that the presence of companies will help reduce the number of dependents in an area since many will be employed and can support the other members of their respective families.

She also blamed that the large family size on the high dependency ratio wherein the head of the family has more than a dozen of children.

“Many are poor because the region has large family size. You cannot get out of poverty with the many number of children,” she added.

According to her, most of the families in the Region 8 want three children but are having five- two more than wahr they want.

“There’s a difference between the desired number of children and the actu9al number of children. There are two or more than what they want,” Rodriguez told LSDE.

With this scenario, the PopCom regional director reiterated the need to strengthen the implementation of population management programs in local government units in Eastern Visayas.

She pointed out that this is high time now for local chief executive to divert their attention to the growing population which affects almost all aspects in the government’s delivery of services.

Rodriguez said that local government units are in a better position in pushing through population management in the local level because of the limited resources of national government agencies.