Government\u2019s celebration of the \u201cdecline\u201d in 2025 official poverty incidence ignores how flawed poverty standards discount the millions of Filipinos struggling to escape economic hardship or to attain a decent standard of living. The group said by ignoring the reality of widespread poverty, the Marcos Jr administration justifies merely carrying out band-aid solutions rather than truly resolving the structural roots of poverty. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The latest Philippine Statistics Authority poverty figures show a sharp decline in poverty incidence, with the proportion of poor Filipinos falling from 15.5% in 2023 to 9.7% in 2025, or from 17.5 million to 11.1 million people. The administration has highlighted this as a major poverty-reduction achievement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the government continues to use a problematic, outdated, and very unrealistic standard in defining who is poor. IBON underscored that the official methodology understates poverty because its food threshold is based on a bare-minimum, least-cost basket while non-food needs are not directly and adequately costed. The 2025 annual per-capita poverty threshold is only Php35,121, or Php96.22 per person per day. For a family of five, this amounts to just Php14,634 a month. This means a family earning even slightly more than this is officially considered non-poor, without considering the high costs of food, housing, electricity, transportation, education, healthcare and other basic expenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The gap becomes clearer when measured against what families actually need for a decent life. IBON estimates put the family living wage (FLW) at Php1,277 per day for a family of five and Php1,533 for a family of six, as of July 2026. Yet the Philippine average minimum wage is only Php512 per day. Thus, the average minimum wage covers only around 40% of the FLW for a family of five and just a third for a family of six. Millions of workers are still unable to afford a decent standard of living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government also points to targeted assistance and programs such as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino<\/em> Program (4Ps), Social Pension, Katuwang sa Diwa at Gawa para sa Masaganang Ani at Mataas na Kita<\/em> (KADIWA), Walang Gutom<\/em>, Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged\/ Displaced Workers<\/em> (TUPAD), and the DOLE Integrated Livelihood and Emergency Employment Program (DILEEP) as having helped narrow income gaps and reduce poverty. Such programs are important safety nets, said the research group, but relying heavily on dole-outs to move people above an already low poverty threshold only treats the symptoms rather than the structural roots of poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n IBON stressed that poverty reduction should not mean merely keeping people barely above a statistical line. The government must create the conditions for sustained and broad-based improvements in living standards by strengthening the domestic economy and developing engines of growth that generate stable, decent-paying jobs. Beyond raising workers\u2019 wages, this means developing Filipino industries and agriculture, and strengthening public services. This builds an economy capable of generating sufficient and decent livelihoods for the many, and not simply providing temporary assistance to those who remain poor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Genuine poverty reduction will be measured not simply by how many Filipinos cross a very low poverty line, but by how many can actually afford a secure life with decent work and adequate incomes, IBON said.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Poverty reduction should not mean merely keeping people barely above a statistical line. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2048,14],"tags":[2972,4456,598,608,1334,4457,2611],"class_list":["post-19123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banner","category-news","tag-marcos-jr-administration","tag-official-poverty","tag-philippine-poverty","tag-poverty-incidence","tag-poverty-threshold","tag-understated-poverty","tag-worsening-poverty","wpautop"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-30 02:20:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19123"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19129,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19123\/revisions\/19129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}