MANILA, Philippines — Fewer families went hungry nationwide, except in Metro Manila, in September, according to a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.
Results of the poll conducted from Sept. 12 to Sept. 16 showed that 10 percent, or an estimated 2.5 million families, experienced “involuntary hunger,” or hunger due to lack of food to eat, at least once in the three months prior to the survey.
It is the total of the 7.9 percent, or 2 million families, who experienced “moderate hunger,” and 2.1 percent, or 534,000 families, who felt “severe hunger.”
This was lower than the 13.6 percent, or about 3.4 million families, recorded in June.
According to SWS, moderate hunger referred to those who experienced hunger “only once” or “a few times” in the last three months, while severe hunger covered those who experienced it “often” or “always” during the same period.
The decline in overall hunger in September was due to decreases from June in all areas except in Metro Manila, where some 473,000 families remained hungry at 14 percent.
It eased in Luzon (excluding the National Capital Region) and Mindanao both from 15 percent in June to 10.3 percent in September, and the Visayas from 8.3 percent to 6 percent.
Pandemic effect
In the Visayas, both moderate hunger and severe hunger decreased to 5 percent and 1 percent, respectively, in September compared to June’s 7 percent and 1.3 percent.
In Mindanao, the September survey showed that moderate hunger decreased to 9 percent while severe hunger remained at 1.3 percent. It was 13.7 percent and 1.3 percent in the region in June.
SWS also found that overall hunger fell among self-rated poor from 15.7 percent in June to 14.3 percent in September, as well as among the self-rated food-poor from 20.7 percent to 15.5 percent.
While hunger has eased this year, the resulting average of 13.5 percent for the first three quarters of 2021 has not fully recovered to prepandemic levels, SWS said.
The annual average hunger rate stood at 9.3 percent in 2019. It jumped to an average of 21.1 percent in 2020, which was the first year of the pandemic.
The survey used face-to-face-interviews of 1,200 adults nationwide and had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3 percent for national percentages and plus-or-minus 6 percent for Metro Manila, Visayas, Mindanao and Luzon outside Metro Manila.