Courtesy: Social Weather Stations

The Stratbase-Social Weather Stations (SWS) bared in its latest survey that the number of poor Filipino families who experienced total hunger “rose sharply” from 26.4% in February to 35.6% in March this year.

The non-commissioned survey result shows that the total hunger, or the combination of moderate and severe hunger, has been increasing since January 2025 (22.3%) among households that consider themselves as poor.

Data base also revealed that it rose slightly among the non-poor families from 16.2% in February to 18.3% in March. This was also a continued rise since the 10% in January.

Meanwhile, a commissioned SWS survey also in March showed that the number of Filipino families who experienced involuntary hunger—being hungry and not having anything to eat—at least once in the past three months also increased to 27.2%, from the 25.9% recorded in December 2024.

Self-rated poor

Based on the March 2025 Stratbase-SWS survey, the percentage of Filipino families that rated themselves as poor also climbed by 1 point from 51% in February to 52%.

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The estimated numbers of self-rated poor families were 14.3 million in February and 14.4 million in March.

The SWS attributed the 1-point increase in the nationwide self-rated poverty to the slight increases in the Visayas and Balance Luzon, combined with slight decreases in Mindanao and Metro Manila.

The March percentage was highest in the Visayas at 62%, followed by Mindanao at 60%, Balance Luzon at 46%, and Metro Manila at 41%.

The percentage of borderline poor families was at 12% in March, down slightly from 13% in February and 14% in January.

On the other hand, households that rated themselves as not poor remained “at record-high” 36% for three consecutive months since January.

The survey was conducted on March 15-20, 2025, and used face-to-face interviews of 1,800 registered voters aged 18 and above, nationwide.

It has sampling error margins of ±2.31% for national percentages, ±3.27% for Balance Luzon, and ±5.66% each for Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao.