1 M more hungry families – SWS

MANILA, Philippines – The number of Filipino families who experienced having nothing to eat at least once during the second quarter of the year rose by one million, according to a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.

Hunger incidence in the country worsened from 19.2 percent (about 3.9 million) in March to 22.7 percent (an estimated 4.9 million) in June.

Based on the SWS survey, conducted from June 28 to 30, this was the highest hunger rate recorded since March last year at 23.8 percent.

The SWS poll, which was published in the newspaper BusinessWorld yesterday, used face-to-face interviews of 1,200 respondents nationwide.

SWS noted that hunger rose sharply among the poor.

Moderate hunger, which refers to those who experienced having nothing to eat “only once” or “a few times” in the last three months, increased to 17.3 percent (around 3.7 million families) from 15.6 percent (3.2 million) in March.

Severe hunger, which refers to those who experienced having nothing to eat “often” or “always,” went up to 5.4 percent (around 1.2 million families) from 3.6 percent (726,000).

Overall hunger increased nationwide except in Mindanao, the SWS said.

It rose by 11 points to 26 percent (2.5 million) in balance Luzon, by two points to 23.7 percent (692,000) in Metro Manila, and six points to 21 percent (869,000) in the Visayas.

However, it dropped to 17 percent (834,000 families) in June from 29.2 percent (1.4 million) in March in Mindanao.

SWS said moderate and severe hunger likewise increased in most of the areas except in Mindanao.

Moderate hunger rose the highest to 18.3 percent from 12 percent in balance Luzon.

It also increased to 18.3 percent from 13.7 percent in the Visayas, and rose to 18 percent from 17.3 percent in Metro Manila.

Moderate hunger, however, fell to 14 percent from 22.7 percent in Mindanao.

Severe hunger rose to 5.7 percent from 4.3 percent in Metro Manila, to 7.7 percent from 2.7 percent in balance Luzon and to 2.7 percent from 1.3 percent in the Visayas.

It dropped to three percent from 6.7 percent in Mindanao.

The poll has error margins of plus or minus three percentage points for national and plus or minus six points for area percentages. –Helen Flores (The Philippine Star)