A VETERAN Caloocan City lawmaker on Sunday dismissed the World Bank’s (WB) recent reclassification of the Philippines as an upper-middle-income country, saying it holds little meaning for the vast majority of Filipinos whose actual earnings remain far below the reported national average.
District 1 Rep. Edgar Erice, interviewed by The Manila Times via Viber, noted that the WB’s upgrade was based on the country’s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita exceeding the US$4,635 threshold.
However, he cautioned that per capita figures fail to capture the economic realities of most Filipino households and tend to obscure the deep-seated income inequality that persists nationwide.
“The earnings of most Filipinos are considerably lower than the per capita income suggests. This statistic masks the vast divide between the poor and the middle class, on one hand, and the few elite of extraordinarily wealthy Filipinos, on the other,” Erice said.
He said that the immense fortunes of the country’s richest individuals disproportionately inflate the national average, creating a distorted picture of general prosperity.
“To put it in perspective: if a billionaire walks into a room with 99 penniless people, the average wealth in that room would soar dramatically. Yet the reality remains that 99 out of 100 people are still poor,” Erice said. The Caloocan legislator urged the government to release more granular income data that accurately reflects the economic standing of Filipino families across different socioeconomic strata.
“The government should present average household incomes disaggregated by class — poor, lower-middle, middle, upper-middle, and rich. Such data would offer a clearer, more truthful portrait of Filipino living conditions and enable policymakers to craft targeted interventions that address the specific needs of each sector,” he said.
Erice lamented that millions of Filipinos continue to grapple with rising costs, stagnant wages, and limited economic opportunities, warning that overreliance on aggregate indicators like GNI per capita risks painting an overly optimistic picture of national progress.
“Economic progress should not be gauged by averages alone. It must be measured by whether the daily lives of ordinary Filipinos are truly improving,” he added.