Malacanang on Wednesday said the Duterte administration has made significant strides in addressing poverty as shown by the latest government statistics.

"The Palace welcomes the latest report of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on poverty incidence among Filipino individuals for the first semester of 2018 which declined to 21 percent from 27.6 percent in 2015," Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a statement.

According to PSA, the poverty incidence among families was estimated at 16.1 percent which is also a decrease from the 22.2 percent in the same period in 2015.

"These figures highlight that the Duterte administration has made significant strides and reflect how it seriously deals with the long-standing national issue of poverty through broadening access to free education, free medicine and improved healthcare facilities, as well as providing institutional school feeding program for public school children, higher pension for seniors and veterans, salary increases for soldiers, policemen, firemen, teachers and government workers, free irrigation for farmers and other socioeconomic services favorable to our marginalized brothers and sisters, with the goal of ensuring that Filipinos directly benefit from the country’s economic gains," said Panelo.

The Palace commended the responsible departments and agencies for doing their respective jobs with commitment and fervor.

"We will not rest but rather continue to work hard to achieve our target of decreasing poverty incidence to 14 percent, or even better, by the end of President Rodrigo Duterte's term in 2022 and fulfill the President’s vision of providing a comfortable life for each and every Filipino," he said.

PSA reported that for the first semester of 2018, the number of poor Filipinos dropped to 23.1 million from 28.8 million in 2015 while the number of poor families fell to 4 million from 5 million. Ella Dionisio/DMS