Residents of Purok 3, Isla Puting Bato in Tondo, Manila salvage what they can on April 11, 2024, a day after a blaze hit the area. The fire, which reached Task Force Alpha, injured three and displaced some 500 families as it gutted 300 homes. Maria Tan, ABS-CBN News 

Almost half of Filipino families feel poor, according to a Social Weather Stations survey released Tuesday.

The March 21-25 poll conducted by SWS found that 46 percent of Filipino families rated themselves as mahirap or poor. This is equivalent to 13 million families, the SWS said.

"Compared to December 2023, the percentage of Poor families hardly changed from 47 percent," the pollster said. 

Self-rated poverty was highest in the Visayas at 64 percent, followed by Mindanao at 56 percent, Luzon areas outside the capital region at 38 percent, and Metro Manila at 33 percent. 

Meanwhile, 30 percent of families rated themselves as borderline poor, while 23 percent said they were not poor.

Thirty-three percent of families rate themselves as "food-poor" based on the food that they ate, hardly changing from December's figures. 

But SWS noted that self-rated food poverty rose in Visayas and Metro Manila.

"As of March 2024, the percentage of Self-Rated Food-Poor families was highest in the Visayas at 46 percent, followed by Mindanao at 44%, Metro Manila at 28 percent, and Balance Luzon at 24 percent," SWS said.

The SWS poll used face-to-face interviews with 1,500 adults. It had a sampling error margin of ±2.5 percent for national percentages.