A lawmaker on Sunday called on the Marcos administration to address the reality of rising market prices, stagnant wages, and job scarcity instead of masking economic hardship behind "fabricated" metrics.

ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. Antonio Tinio questioned the recent statistic released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), wherein it was found that the poverty incidence in the country had dropped by 9.7 percent in 2025.

He said that such data undermined the facts, citing a separate survey recently conducted by Octa Research that revealed that there were 10.3 million Filipinos who consider themselves poor.

“What is the Marcos administration really saying in their PSA report? Optics or lies? Hopefully the truth can be revealed. You cannot claim victory over poverty while 5.6 million Filipino families are going hungry under your watch,” Tinio stressed.

Under the same Octa Research study, it was identified that an additional four percent of Filipinos were identifying as poor, at 39 percent and hungry at 21 percent since the study was previously carried out in March.

Tinio said that the increase could be attributed to the rising cost of living, with each Filipino needing to earn at least P1,312 per day in order to have a “dignified life.”

The PSA, however, placed that poverty threshold at P35,121 annual per capita, a metric that the lawmaker said was “grossly insufficient” and “conservatively computed” to hide actual poverty numbers.

“The threshold is pegged so low that anyone who manages to eat a handful of rice and a piece of dried fish is considered non-poor,” he said. “Filipino families need P1,312 per day to live with dignity but this administration just shows press releases that poverty has decreased.”

Tinio further stated that even the statistics agency itself had identified that there was an issue when it came to how it computed the poverty rate, noting that the agency’s chief statistician had said that the food budget that was allocated did not meet basic nutritional needs.

He noted that the figure was increasingly unrealistic given that it did not account for the numerous price shocks that were experienced in 2026, driving more Filipinos into poverty.

“The report does not reflect today’s realities of rising prices, stagnant wages, and widespread joblessness. The crisis is very much alive in our families, but the government is hiding behind fabricated figures,” he said.

Amid his opposition to the metric released by the PSA, Tinio called on the Marcos administration to focus reforms that address economic deficiencies rather than doing “victory laps” on numbers that did not display the harsh reality faced by the public.

“The truth is there are more families that remain hungry, there are more Filipinos that are in poverty. This administration has nothing to be proud of,” he said.