Mass poverty continues to be one of the most serious problems plaguing the country. Notwithstanding development projects of both government agencies and non-governmental organizations that are specifically targeted to the poor, the percentage of poor families living below the poverty threshold remains high. This is due partly to superficial knowledge of the characteristics and activities of the poor - their location, the resources available to them, and their efforts to fulfill their own needs. In consideration of that, the aim of this study was to augment current information on the characteristics and activities of the poor. In order to meet this objective, a survey similar to the 1985 Socio-Economic Survey (SES) of Special Groups of Families undertaken by NEDA and NCSO was conducted. The scope of the survey was narrowed down to five (5) regions - the National Capital Region (NCR) and Regions 5, 8, 9 and 12. The respondent families in this study consisted of all the 1,996 households in the chosen regions that belong to the bottom 30% of the 1988 FIES respondent households ranked according to per capita income. Field operations were conducted by the interviewers of the National Statistics Office (NSO) in January 1990. A total of 1,900 filled-up questionnaires were obtained. These questionnaires had been edited and the responses encoded, except for the last block on community services and facilities which is still undergoing electronic data processing. Construction of summary and analytical tables showing and comparing the characteristics of low-income families in the five (5) regions is underway. Results of this survey will also be compared to that obtained in the 1985 NEDA-NCSO SES study for the low-income families in the chosen regions.

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