SWS: 3M families experienced hunger in 4th qtr

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Hunger in the Philippines worsened in the last quarter of 2021 with the highest increase recorded in Metro Manila, results of a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed.

The survey, conducted from Dec. 12 to Dec. 16 and released Friday afternoon, found 11.8 percent or some 3 million families saying they experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the three months prior to the survey period.

This was 1.8 points higher than the 10 percent or an estimated 2.5 million families recorded in September 2021.

Annual average hunger for 2021, meanwhile, was 13.1 percent, lower than the record-high 21.1 percent in 2020 but still above the 9.3 percent annual average in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hunger increased the most in Metro Manila, from 14 percent in September to 22 percent in December. It went up from 6 percent to 9.7 percent in the Visayas, and from 10.3 percent to 12.2 percent in Mindanao.

But hunger went down from 10.3 percent to 9.2 percent in Luzon outside Metro Manila.

The overall hunger rate is the sum of 9.2 percent (2.3 million families) who experienced moderate hunger and 2.6 percent (657,000) who experienced severe hunger.

According to SWS, moderate hunger refers to those who experienced hunger “only once” or “a few times” in the last three months, while severe hunger refers to those who experienced it “often” or “always” during the same period.

The survey used in-person interviews of 1,440 adults nationwide and had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.6 percent for national percentages and plus-or-minus 5.2 percent for Metro Manila, the Visayas, Mindanao and Luzon outside Metro Manila. —Inquirer Research

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