More Filipinos going hungry, survey shows

PHOTO BY DON LEJANO

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 percent), or an estimated 4.3 million families, went hungry in the third quarter compared to 15.1 percent 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 percent in December 2009 during the previous Arroyo administration. It is also 7.5 percentage points higher than the 14 percent 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 percent (2.6 million families) in June to 18 percent (3.6 million families) in September.

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

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

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

Down in Mindanao

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

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

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

Highest in Metro

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

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

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

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