THE number of Filipinos who said they are poor and hungry remained almost the same in the first quarter of 2026, a survey conducted by OCTA Research showed.
In its Tugon ng Masa survey conducted from March 19 to 25, Filipinos who said that they were poor declined slightly to 35 percent, equivalent to 9.2 million families, down 2 percent from the 37 percent or 9.8 million families in the previous quarter.
However, OCTA noted that the difference is not “statistically significant” and is within the survey’s margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent, which suggests that overall poverty conditions remained stable.
Broken down by regions, self-rated poverty declined in the National Capital Region (NCR) and Mindanao by 12 and 11 points, respectively, at 21 percent and 56 percent, while self-rated poverty increased in Balance Luzon and Visayas by 3 and 4 percentage points at 25 percent and 44 percent.
Self-rated poverty remains more pronounced among lower-income households, with 58 percent of Socioeconomic Class E families considering themselves poor.
Meanwhile, self-rated food poverty, or the inability of households to secure sufficient and nutritious food on a regular basis, rose slightly to 31 percent, or around 8.1 million families, from 30 percent in the previous quarter, which is also not statistically significant, according to OCTA.
Mindanao had the highest incidence of self-rated food poverty at 53 percent, while the NCR is at the lowest at 12 percent, a 41-point regional gap.
Self-rated hunger also increased slightly to 17 percent of Filipino families, compared to 16 percent in the previous quarter, but OCTA noted that 82 percent of affected families reported experiencing hunger only once or a few times, suggesting that hunger remained more episodic than chronic.
Visayas had the highest self-rated hunger at 26 percent, followed by Mindanao and Balance Luzon.
The results, OCTA said, point to a “pattern of shallow but fragile stabilization,” with households appearing marginally less likely to describe themselves as poor, but not materially more food secure.
“This suggests that while economic sentiment may have improved modestly, household resilience remained weak and highly exposed to price shocks, particularly in food and transport. The broader pattern is not one of broad-based recovery, but of fragile stabilization,” OCTA said.
It said that the findings reflect household conditions prior to the wider inflationary effects of the oil price shock associated with the conflict in the Middle East.
“As such, the March 2026 results may be best understood as a pre-shock baseline, before higher transport and food costs began exerting broader pressure on household welfare and food access,” OCTA said.
The survey had 1,200 respondents and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.
