THE percentage of Filipinos believing they are poor went down slightly from the previous quarter, and by three points to 44 percent or an estimated 10 million families, according to the latest Social Weather Stations survey released on Tuesday.
The latest poll, conducted from Dec. 8 to 16, showed self-rated poverty was back to its June 2017 levels after a three-point increase in September 2017.
The number of those who described themselves as food-poor steadied in the last six months, remaining at 32 percent or an estimated 7.3 million families, in September 2017.
Before December, the proportion of Self-Rated Food Poor families was 35 percent in March and 32 percent in both June and September.
The three-point nationwide decline in Self-Rated Poverty (SRP) in the last quarter of 2017 was due to a sharp fall in Balance Luzon and slight decreases in Metro Manila and the Visayas, offset by an increase in Mindanao, the pollster said.
Self-rated poverty decreased by 10 points in Balance Luzon, three points in Metro Manila and three points in the Visayas.
More people in Mindanao, however, said they were poor, marking a sharp increase of seven points in the last three months.
The respondents said they would need more than P15,000 monthly for home expenses in order not to consider themselves poor.
The median Self-Rated Poverty Gap, or the amount poor families lacked in monthly home expenses relative to their stated threshold, was unchanged at P5,000 or one-third of the Self-Rated Poverty Threshold.
The non-commissioned survey, fielded among 1,200 adults nationwide, had a sampling margin of error of ±2.5 percent for the national percentages.