A recent survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) reveals that 52% of Filipino families consider themselves poor as of March, showing a slight increase from February’s 51%, but an improvement from December’s 63%.
“The estimated numbers of self-rated poor families were 14.3 million in February 2025 and 14.4 million in March 2025. The percentage of respondent households rating themselves as poor was applied to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) medium-population projections for 2025 to arrive at the estimated numbers of self-rated poor families,” SWS stated in a media release on Saturday.
Conducted between March 15 and 20, the survey also found that 12% of respondents placed themselves on the borderline—not quite poor but not fully comfortable—while 36% classified themselves as not poor.
Self-rated poverty was most prevalent in the Visayas at 62%, followed by Mindanao at 60%, Balance Luzon at 46%, and Metro Manila at 41%. SWS also noted a rising trend in hunger, particularly among poorer households.
“The March 2025 survey found that 27.2% of Filipino families experienced involuntary hunger—being hungry and not having anything to eat—at least once in the past three months,” added SWS.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported a decline in inflation, dropping to 1.8% in March from 2.1% in February. House Speaker Martin Romualdez attributed this to the “economic intervention measures” of President Bongbong Marcos Jr., his cousin.
The PSA recorded a poverty rate of 15.5% in 2023, a decrease from 18.1% in 2021, equating to approximately 17.54 million Filipinos living below the poverty threshold.
In his State of the Nation Address last year, President Marcos acknowledged ongoing economic struggles among Filipinos but expressed optimism, aiming to reduce the poverty rate to single digits by the end of his term—a goal he described as “doable.” (ZIA LUNA)
