Issues · Lubao, Pampanga, Philippines
Lubao is a first-class municipality of 190,355 people (2024 census) in 44 barangays, about 60 miles northwest of Manila. Families farm rice, raise fish in ponds, work in shops and services, and send members to work elsewhere in the Philippines and abroad. This page puts the local numbers in one place — wages, family income, food and medicine prices — so the rest of our Lubao pages can be read against real costs.
| Minimum wage | ₱600 a day for non-agriculture work in Pampanga (Wage Order RBIII-26, in full effect April 16, 2026) — about $9.50 a day. Agriculture pays ₱570 a day; retail and service work ₱590 |
|---|---|
| Monthly equivalent | About ₱14,600–₱15,650 a month at the minimum wage |
| Average family income | ₱431,510 a year in Pampanga (government family income survey, 2023); the Central Luzon regional average was ₱447,310 in the 2025 survey |
| Poverty line | The national poverty threshold for a family of five is ₱14,634 a month (2025). In Lubao, 8.68% of residents — about 1 in 11 — live below the poverty line (2023) |
| Exchange rate | About ₱63.40 to US$1 (late October 2026) |
| Rice | About ₱45.37 per kilo, regular milled (Department of Agriculture price monitoring, October 2026) |
|---|---|
| Pork | About ₱306 per kilo (kasim cut) |
| Eggs | About ₱8.24 each |
| Canned sardines | About ₱18–₱25 per 155 g can |
| A hot meal | ₱25 per person at the government's supplementary-feeding standard |
| A family food pack | ₱797.80 — rice, canned meats and fish, coffee and choco drinks; feeds a family of five for two to three days (social welfare department, 2026) |
| Maintenance medicine | About ₱758 a month for a common three-drug bundle for blood pressure and diabetes, at pharmacy prices |
| $10 · ₱634 | About 25 hot meals · about 14 kg of rice · about 29 cans of sardines · about one month of blood-pressure medicine for one patient |
|---|---|
| $20 · ₱1,268 | About 1.6 family food packs · about 50 hot meals · one month of the full maintenance-medicine bundle, with money left over |
| $100 · ₱6,340 | About 8 family food packs — eight families of five fed for two to three days · about 253 hot meals · about 8 months of maintenance medicine for one patient · more than the ₱5,400 emergency cash grant paid to each flood-hit Lubao farming and fishing family in 2026 |
Read those numbers against the wage: a $100 gift is more than ten days of minimum-wage work. That is why the work on our community work page is built from small, priced pieces — a feeding, a food pack, a month of medicine — each one costed before it is promised.
600 pesos a day for non-agriculture work under Wage Order RBIII-26, in full effect from April 16, 2026 — about $9.50 a day. Agriculture is 570 pesos and retail/service is 590 pesos a day.
190,355 people in 44 barangays, per the Philippine Statistics Authority's 2024 census. About 8.68% of residents live below the poverty line.
About 8 government family food packs (each feeds a family of five for two to three days), or about 253 hot meals at the 25-peso government standard, or about 8 months of maintenance medicine for one patient.
Gifts to Eat The Elephant fund the ground work on these pages — meals, medicine, school projects, and flood-season help for families in Lubao, Pampanga.
Donate The Lubao ProjectCommunity work in Lubao · Flooding · Food & feeding · Health · Education · What a dollar does
