Philippines Vital Statistics to October 2025 as of 28 February 2026 released on 29 April 2026. Deaths (-1.1%), Marriages (-16.2%), and especially Births (-5.1%) dropped vs. the same periods in 2024.

Ischemic heart disease is the leading cause of deaths accounting for 19.8% of registered deaths, followed by cancer at 11.5%, and cerebrovascular disease at 9.9%. Evidence of failing Filipino health.

The Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA) has released interim 2025 vital statistics and cause of death data in their regular monthly release. Released are vital statistics for January to October, compiled as of 28 February 2026.

Marriages

23,876 marriages were added in the data drop as of February 2026. Marriages are down 16.2% in 2025. This may be contributed by tough economic times, weddings are expensive, as well as changing societal values around marriage and families. However, with more than 50% of babies born in the Philippines being born out of wedlock, fewer marriage should not in themselves explain the ongoing and rapid drop in births. Family planning however might; various methods are widely available, provided for free in government hospitals, and their use encouraged. Abortion remains illegal in the Philippines.

Deaths

61,732 deaths were added in the data drop as of February 2026. Examination of the deaths by data drop indicates that the data up to July is already substantially complete.

Deaths are down 1.1% in 2025 (vs. 2024) in the period from January to July. I did not include August to October in this estimate, as these data are still clearly incomplete. If current data trending continues, the final death counts for 2025 are likely to be similar to 2024: January and March 2025 deaths are higher than 2024 levels; all other months are still lower.

Births

27,873 births were added in the data drop as of February 2026. Examination of the births by data drop indicates that the data up to August is already substantially complete.

Births are down 5.1% in 2025 (vs. 2024) from January to August (6.0% for January to September). October data is still too incomplete to consider. While the data is still incomplete, I suspect that final births will show a drop of 5 - 6% vs 2024. This will represent a 24.9% drop in births since 2019.

Births and deaths plotted over time since 2019 show the state of Filipino population outcomes. The continued damping of births is highly alarming, particularly in the context of a mean population age of around 26.5 years of age, and 2012 being the Philippines peak birth year! Births fell by about 1% per year between 2012 and 2019; they then fell by an average of 3.9% between 2019 and 2024! This 3.9x increase represents a sudden, unexpected, and unprecedented change that exactly coincided with the 2020 pandemic and 2021 COVID-19 shots rollout.

PSA is one of the best performing statistical agencies in Asia with continuing improvements in data collection over time; under-registration should not be a significant contributor to the observed patterns.

To give an indication of natural population growth (births - deaths) trending into 2025, I averaged monthly births and deaths by year. For 2025, I used partial year data; to July for deaths and to August for births. Natural population growth fell 55% between 2015 and 2024, and 49% between 2019 and 2024. Births in 2025, nearly 10% lower than births in 2024, may recover somewhat once the usual end of year rise in births is included.

Cause of Death

Cause of death (COD) data, assessed by % contribution of each COD is clear evidence of the worsening state of Filipino health. Together ischemic heart disease, neoplasms (cancer), and cerebrovascular disease (stroke) account for 41.2% of deaths, and are continuing to rise over time. The observation that other COD appear to be dropping is no relief because as some COD (by %) rise, others must necessarily drop.

While the Philippines and Filipinos grapple with the impacts of the global crisis; soaring fuel costs and soon to rise prices of all basic commodities, their health also needs to be under the spotlight.

Worsening health in 2026 and 2027 is going to be blamed on the fallout (stress, greatly increased poverty, ongoing fuel and coming food, medications, basic goods shortages) of the current energy crisis. While these will certainly all cause very great harm (particularly for vulnerable persons), we must not forget that health has been declining consistently over multiple years. That decline was accelerated by COVID-19 measures and interventions. It will be further accelerated by the current crisis being imposed globally.