An independent research group has disputed the Marcos administration’s claim of an economic resurgence after the country’s recent climb to upper-middle-income country (UMIC) status.

IBON Foundation said that newly released labor force figures exposed the hollowness of the claim. The group said the supposed “economic milestone” masked a deepening jobs crisis driven by decades of the government’s market-oriented policies that have failed to create sufficient decent work.

In the run-up to the fifth State of the Nation Address (SoNA), IBON said the economic crisis burdening ordinary Filipinos is worsening.

The public is saddled with high fuel and food prices, a lack of decent jobs and rising poverty.

Such detrimental conditions will deepen as the Marcos administration clings to a failed market-driven framework that favors big business and the wealthy few, according to Ibon executive director Sonny Africa.

Africa said the administration is hard-pressed to conceal the deep policy failures driving widespread hardship.

“The world has changed with huge geopolitical and geoeconomic shifts,” Ibon said. “The Philippines can’t stay on its current path of underdevelopment that generates wealth for the few at the cost of high prices, joblessness, and worsening poverty for the majority.”

The government claims the UMIC status reflects its “effective economic policies,” but Africa said ordinary Filipinos do not feel this.

“The growth model that resulted in the statistical reclassification can expand economic output but is unable to create decent work with livable pay for the majority of Filipinos,” he added.

The think tank said government measures remain “tokenistic and too small for the magnitude of the country’s problems,” adding that “a checklist of so-called accomplishments and overblown promises” would not address deeper issues such as weak domestic production, dependence on imports, and rising debt.

Agriculture has emerged as another flashpoint ahead of the SoNA, with farmer organizations questioning whether government policies have strengthened local food production.

WB classification

The country was formally classified as an upper-middle-income economy beginning 1 July 2026, after its gross national income per capita reached $4,850, slightly above the World Bank (WB) threshold of $4,636. The Philippines now joins Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand in the same broad income classification.

Senator Loren Legarda said the reclassification recognizes the economic progress over several decades. It also reveals how late the Philippines has been in reaching a milestone already attained by several of its regional neighbors.

“Our upper-middle-income status should give us perspective, humility, and a greater sense of urgency. We should have reached this point much earlier. Countries like Vietnam, which once lagged behind us, have now outpaced us in many sectors,” she noted.

“Our neighbors have moved faster in building reliable public transport, stronger industries, better classrooms, broader social protection, and more efficient public services,” she said.

She pointed out the classification was based on average national income and could not, by itself, show whether prosperity is fairly distributed or whether Filipino families enjoy an upper-middle-income quality of life.

No change felt

Meanwhile, DAILY TRIBUNE talked to toiling Filipinos who said they have not felt the leveling up of the country’s economy.

Judith Caballero, 59, of Dumaguete City completed only elementary school in Guihulngan City, Negros Oriental. As a teenager, she worked as a househelp in Cebu before moving to Manila.

She married a car painter in 1988, but was widowed in 2015 when her husband died of a heart attack. Left to raise nine children, Caballero took on the responsibilities of motherhood. Today, she lives with two of her daughters, her eldest and her youngest, who is 18 years old.

“Nothing has really changed. Some of my children have gone on to live their own lives. That promise of P20-per-kilo rice does exist, however, we were not included in the rice subsidy program,” she said.

“The houses of those who received the subsidy have stickers on them. Ours doesn’t,” she said.

She said she was a member of 4Ps, the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program that provides eligible low-income households with cash grants for health, education, and rice subsidies.

After receiving P3,700 from the program every two months since 2013, Caballero wondered why she was considered a 4Ps graduate in 2021 while still being a solo parent, one of the 4Ps categories.

For her, the SoNA is just for news purposes, as many like her still suffer hardship.

Buko vendor: Life goes on

With or without the SoNA, for Joel Sullera, 42, “life goes on.”

“I won’t earn anything if I don’t sell. Besides, I’m not really up to date with those kinds of programs. Life has to go on,” Sullera said, referring to his job as a “buko” vendor.

But he wishes that President Marcos would continue aiding people like him.

A member of 4Ps, his family received P5,700 every two months. “But it’s still not enough. That’s why I have to keep working,” he said.

Sullera is from Masbate, a high school graduate who at the age of 16 ventured to Manila and landed a factory job. With enough savings, he went into buko selling, married a woman from Leyte, and they had four children, with the eldest now 18 and taking up a criminology course at BestLink College.