More Filipinos experienced hunger in Q3 — SWS

About 13.3 percent or 3.1 million Filipino families experienced involuntary hunger in the past three months, results from the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey released Friday showed.

This was 3.9 points higher than last June’s 9.4 percent, and the highest since December 2017, which had 15.9 percent.

“The measure of Hunger refers to involuntary suffering because the respondents answer a survey question that specifies hunger due to lack of food to eat,” the SWS report explained.

The SWS 3rd quarter 2018 survey conducted from September 15 to 23 also specified that 10.6 percent of Filipino families experienced “Moderate Hunger” — increasing 2.5 percentage points from the previous’ 8.1 percent; while 2.8 percent experienced “Severe Hunger” from July to September — 1.5 percentage points more than the second quarter’s 1.3 percent.

SWS described Moderate Hunger as those who experience hunger “only once” or “a few times” while Severe Hunger were those who experienced hunger “often” or “always.”

Partcularly in Metro Manila, the SWS said quarterly hunger rate was at 17.3 percent or equivalent to 549,000 families, higher than last quarter’s 13 percent, which is equivalent to 412,000 families.

In Balance Luzon, 12.7 percent or 1.3 million Filipino families experienced hunger, which is more than the 7.3 percent (758,000 families) result in the SWS 2nd quarter 2018 survey.

In Visayas, on the other hand, Filipino families who experienced involuntary hunger in the third quarter was at 6 percent (269,000 families), 3.3 percentage points lower than the 9.3 percent (419,000 families) who said they suffered from hunger in April to June 2018.

Meanwhile, in Mindanao, hunger rate was up by 7 points at 18.3 percent in the latest survey from 11.3 percent in the survey released last June.

Moreover, the SWS said hunger rate increased among the “Self-rated poor” with 18.5 percent in the September survey — 5.9 percentage points higher than the June survey which was at 12.6 percent.

The latest SWS survey further noted that hunger increased by 1.1 percentage point among non-poor from 6.5 percent in the second quarter to 7.6 percent in the third quarter.

The SWS 3rd quarter 2018 survey on hunger interviewed 1,500 adults with 600 in Balance Luzon and 300 each in Metro Manila, Visayas, and Mindanao.

The survey’s margin of error were ±3% for national percentages, ±4% for Balance Luzon, and ±6% each for Metro Manila, Visayas, and Mindanao. /kga