The Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor is seeking the establishment of satellite offices in other parts of the country to cater to more marginalized sectors and underprivileged families.

PCUP chairperson and chief executive officer Undersecretary Elpidio Jordan Jr. said this plan allows the government to deliver the necessary services closer to its clients, adding that with the satellite offices, the PCUP will be able to accurately determine the number of urban poor Filipinos who will be needing assistance.

"We in the PCUP are actually in the process of determining possibilities of fulfilling our mandate in the most righteous way possible," Jordan said.

The poverty incidence among the population was recorded at 18.1 percent based on the Preliminary Results of the Family Income and Expenditure Survey in 2021 — a report released by the Philippine Statistics Authority in August this year.

The poverty incidence is defined as the proportion of Filipinos whose per capita income cannot sufficiently meet their individual basic food and non-food needs.

The agency said the recorded percentage translates to around 19.99 million Filipinos who lived below the poverty threshold of about P12,030 per month for a family of five.

Meanwhile, the subsistence incidence — defined as the proportion of Filipinos whose income is not enough to meet even just basic food needs — slightly increased to 5.9 percent last year.

The PSA also estimated that a family of five needs at least P8,379 per month to meet their basic food requirements as the report also showed that around 3.50 million families or 13.2 percent were considered poor in 2021.