SWS: Filipino families experiencing hunger up

The Third Quarter 2017 SWS survey found that 11.8% or an estimated 2.7 million families experienced involuntary hunger in the past three months, posting an 2.3 percentage rise from 9.5% quarterly Hunger in June 2017. (Photo by Feed My Starving Children (FMSC)/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

More Filipino families said they experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the last three months, the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed.

The Third Quarter 2017 SWS survey found that 11.8% or an estimated 2.7 million families experienced involuntary hunger in the past three months, posting a 2.3 percentage rise from 9.5% quarterly Hunger in June 2017.

Approximately 11.8% or 2.2 million families said they experienced moderate hunger. The percentage rose by 1.8 points from 9.6% in September.

Whereas, 2.1% or 493,000 families said they experienced severe hunger, up by 0.5 points 2.1% in September.

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” in the last three months

“The few who did not state their frequency of hunger were classified under Moderate Hunger.” the SWS said.

“Both Moderate Hunger and Severe Hunger increased between June 2017 and September 2017. Prior to this, both had been steadily declining since December 2016,” it added.

From June 2017 to September 2017, quarterly Hunger rose by 3.1 points among the Self-Rated Poor, from 13.6% in June to 16.7% in September. It also rose by 1.1 points among the Non-poor over the same period, going from 6.3% to 7.4%.

Hunger also increased by 2.7 points among the self-rated food-poor to 19.8 percent in September from 17.1 percent in June and 2.1 points among the not food-poor to 8 percent from 5.9 percent.

The quarterly hunger percentage swelled in all regions except Mindanao.

In Metro Manila, quarterly hunger rose by 0.4 points from 11.3% (353,000 families) in June 2017 to 11.7% in September 2017 while in Balance Luzon, it rose 5.5 points from 8.3% (645,000 families) in June to 13.8% in September.

Hunger rose by 1 point in the Visayas, from 8.7% (324,000 families) in June to 9.7% in September. However, in Mindanao, Hunger fell by 1.7 points from 11.3% (523,000 families) to 9.7% in September.

The Survey, conducted from September 23-27, interviewed 1,500 adult aged 18 years old and above nationwide.

Annual Hunger rates, or the annual averages, have a sampling error margin of ±1.5%.