The National Statistics Office (NSO) conducted for the second time the nationwide Annual Poverty Indicators Survey (APIS) in October 1999. The survey was designed to provide access and impact indicators which can be used as inputs to the development of an integrated poverty indicator and monitoring system for the assessment of government program on poverty alleviation and for use in policy and planning.

Ranking of Provinces for Selected Poverty Indicators is a compilation of fifteen selected minimum basic needs indicators taken from the 1999 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey (APIS). The provinces were arranged based on the percentage of families meeting a particular MBN indicator or poverty correlate from highest to lowest. The province with the highest percentage of families meeting the MBN or were covered by the poverty correlate was ranked 1 and the province with the lowest percentage of families meeting the MBN or were covered by the poverty correlate was ranked 77. However, ranking of provinces with working children was done in the opposite direction. Since the presence of working children in the family is a negative factor for the enabling indicator, the province with the highest percentage of families with working children was given a rank of 77, while the lowest percentage of families was given a rank of 1.

The 2002 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey (APIS) is the third in a series of nationwide poverty indicators survey undertaken by the Philippines National Statistics Office (PNSO) designed to provide access and impact indicators that can be used as inputs to the development of an integrated poverty indicator and monitoring system for the assessment of the government programs on poverty alleviation and for the use of policy makers and planners. A total of 38,014 sample households or 92.7 percent were interviewed for the current APIS undertaken last July 2002.