Hunger among Filipinos reaching record levels – SWS

MANILA, Philippines – Involuntary hunger has reached record numbers, with almost one in four Filipino households going hungry in the past three months, according to a Social Weather Stations survey.

The survey, conducted from Dec. 5 to 10, 2009, also found indications that poor families have been lowering their standard of living.

A total of 24 percent of the respondents, representing about 4.4 million households, said they experienced hunger at least once in the past three months.

This percentage surpassed the previous record of 23.7 percent in December 2008.

Of the 2,100 adults interviewed, 4.7 percent (representing about 870,000 families) said they went hungry “often” or “always,” while 19.3 percent (about 3.6 million families) said they experienced hunger “only once” or “a few times.”

Compared to the results of a similar survey in October, overall hunger rose 11 points in Metro Manila (27 percent, or about 665,000 families); eight points in the Visayas (27.9 percent, or about 1 million families); six points in Mindanao (24.5 percent, or about 1 million families); and two points in the rest of Luzon (21.2 percent, or about 1.7 million families).

Meanwhile, the percentage of Filipino families which considered themselves poor dropped from 51 to 46 percent, or about 8.5 million households.

Self-rated food poverty—meaning, they considered themselves as not having enough food to eat—went down by a single point, from 40 to 39 percent, or about 7.1 million households.

Self-rated food poverty increased by 11 points in Mindanao (48 percent) and by two points in Metro Manila (30 percent), but declined by seven points in the rest of Luzon (36 percent) and by five points in the Visayas (41 percent).

Those who considered themselves poor may have been lowering their living standards, according to SWS.

“The self-rated poverty threshold, or the monthly budget that poor households need in order not to consider themselves poor in general, remain sluggish for several years despite considerable inflation. This indicates that poor families have been lowering their living standards, i.e., belt-tightening,” SWS said.

For example, Metro Manila’s median poverty threshold of P12,000 last December is the equivalent of P7,491 in 2000, considering for inflation.

“The deflated poverty threshold for NCR of below P10,000 per month is a throwback to living standards of over 10 years ago,” SWS said.

Self-rated poverty thresholds in other areas were P8,000 in the rest of Luzon, P7,000 in the Visayas and P6,000 in Mindanao.

Self-rated food poverty thresholds—the monthly amount needed by poor households for them not to consider themselves food-poor—were P7,000 in Metro Manila, P5,000 in the rest of Luzon, P4,000 in the Visayas and P3,000 in Mindanao.

The non-commissioned survey had sampling error margins of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points for national percentages, plus or minus six points for Metro Manila, and plus or minus four points in the remaining areas. –Cyril L. Bonabente, Inquirer Research