Why this matters to Filipinos
FMB News connects the verified facts and evidence in this report to the decisions, costs, opportunities, and risks that may affect Filipinos, Philippine communities, and the country.
Editorial standard: Sources are listed below. Verified reporting, attributed claims, uncertainty, and analysis remain distinct.
Verified facts
What happened
About 12.8% of Filipinos belonged to households classified as multidimensionally poor in 2024, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority's national Multidimensional Poverty Index based on the 2024 Community-Based Monitoring System.
At the household level, 12.4% of Filipino households were classified as multidimensionally poor. The individual-level MPI was 0.045, while the average intensity of deprivation among multidimensionally poor individuals was 34.7%.
How multidimensional poverty is measured
The Philippine MPI measures deprivations using 17 indicators grouped into four dimensions: education; health and nutrition; housing, water and sanitation; and employment.
A household is considered multidimensionally poor when its weighted deprivation score exceeds the poverty cutoff of 0.25.
Where deprivation is concentrated
Education accounted for the largest share of the individual-level MPI at 40.7%, followed by housing, water and sanitation at 31.3%, health and nutrition at 18.5%, and employment at 9.5%.
Among specific indicators, housing materials showed the highest deprivation rate at 38.7% of the population, followed by internet access at 26.4%, sanitation or toilet facilities at 24.1%, ownership of assets at 21.8%, and educational attainment at 20.2%.
Context
Context
Multidimensional poverty is different from income poverty. PSA's 2025 official poverty statistics reported that 9.7% of Filipinos were income-poor, while poverty incidence among families was 6.4%. The measures answer different questions and should not be treated as interchangeable.
Filipino relevance
Why this matters
The MPI highlights gaps that income alone can miss, including schooling, sanitation, housing quality, access to basic assets and employment conditions. That makes it useful for targeting social and infrastructure programs beyond cash assistance.
What to watch next
What to watch next
Policy makers and local governments are expected to use the CBMS-based results to identify where deprivation is concentrated and to target education, health, housing, water, sanitation and employment interventions more precisely.