Philippines - More Filipinos going hungry, survey shows

More Filipino families experienced involuntary hunger in the last three months, according to the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.

Results of the survey conducted on September 4-7 and first published in BusinessWorld showed that about one in every five households (21.5 per cent), or an estimated 4.3 million families, went hungry in the third quarter compared to 15.1 per cent in the previous quarter.

Based on the SWS data, the hunger statistic is the worst so far in the Aquino administration but it is still below the record 24 per cent in December 2009 during the previous Arroyo administration. It is also 7.5 percentage points higher than the 14 per cent average from 1998 to 2011.

SWS asked 1,200 respondents nationwide: "In the last three months, did it happen even once that your family experienced hunger and did not have anything to eat?"

Follow-up question

Those who answered in the affirmative were further asked: "Did it happen 'only once,' 'a few times,' 'often' or 'always?'"

SWS classified experiencing hunger "only once" or "a few times" as "moderate hunger," while going hungry "often" or "always" was rated as "severe hunger."

According to the survey, those who experienced "moderate hunger" increased 4.9 percentage points from 13.1 per cent (2.6 million families) in June to 18 per cent (3.6 million families) in September.

The survey showed 3.5 per cent, or around 713,000 families, experienced "severe hunger" in the third quarter compared to 2 per cent (403,000 families) in June.

By geographical area, overall hunger in Luzon outside Metro Manila rose by 18.6 percentage points to 28.3 per cent (2.5 million families) from the previous 9.7 per cent.

In Metro Manila, it rose by 10 percentage points from 13 per cent in June to 23 per cent (647,000 families).

Down in Mindanao

On the other hand, hunger saw an 8.7-percentage-point decline in Mindanao from 21.7 per cent to 13 per cent (620,000 families) and 5.7-percentage-point decrease in Visayas from a previous 21 per cent to 15.3 per cent (587,000 families).

Moderate hunger climbed 16.6 percentage points in Luzon outside Metro Manila from 7.7 per cent in June to 24.3 per cent in September. It also rose 5.4 percentage points in Metro Manila to 16.7 per cent from the previous 11.3 per cent.

In Mindanao, moderate hunger fell 9 percentage points to 11 per cent from the previous quarter’s 20 per cent.  It also saw a 5.3-percentage-point decline in the Visayas from 18.3 per cent to 13 per cent.

Highest in Metro

Meanwhile, severe hunger was highest in Metro Manila, rising by 4.6 points to 6.3 per cent from 1.7 per cent.

It also rose in Luzon outside Metro Manila by 2 percentage points to 4 per cent and in Mindanao by 0.3 percentage points from 1.7 per cent to 2 per cent.

In the Visayas, severe hunger went down to 2.3 per cent from 2.7 per cent in June.

The survey used face-to-face interviews and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Inquirer Research

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