The World Bank recently upgraded the Philippines to an upper-middle-income country, but that classification makes little difference to many Filipinos grappling with rising cost of living, debt and stagnant wages. “I laughed actually. Like, for real? Where did the data come from?” Ann Michelle Federez-Abato said of the July 1 announcement that her country’s gross national income (GNI) per capita had reached US$4,850 in 2025, surpassing the US$4,636 cut-off for upper-middle-income...