The number of Filipino families who experienced involuntary hunger in the last quarter of 2018 decreased, the latest survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed.
In its Fourth Quarter 2018 Social Weather Survey, the pollster found that only 10.5 percent or an estimated 2.4-million families experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months.
“This is 2.8 points lower than the 13.3% (est. 3.1 million families) Hunger in September 2018,” the SWS said.
This figure brings an average hunger rate of 10.8 percent for 2018, a 1.5-point below the 12.3 percent recorded in 2017 and the “lowest” annual average hunger rate since 2003.
According to the SWS, the 10.5 percent quarterly hunger in December 2018 is the sum of 8.9 percent or an estimated 2.1 million families who experienced “moderate hunger” and 1.5 percent or an estimated 354,000 families who experienced “severe hunger.
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Moderate hunger, the pollster said, are those Filipinos who are hungry “only once” or “a few times” in the last three months, while severe hunger refers to those who are hungry “often” or “always” over the same period.
Survey respondents who did not indicate their frequency of hunger were classified by SWS under moderate hunger.
In terms of location, quarterly hunger rate rose in Metro Manila and Visayas by one point and 3.2 points, respectively, while it was decreased in Balance Luzon by three points and in Mindanao by 10 points.
The average hunger rate of these areas in 2018 are as follows: Metro Manila at 13.7 percent, Balance Luzon at 10.
2 percent, Visayas at 9.4 percent, and Mindanao at 11.3 percent.
The pollster also noted that the 2.8-point drop in the quarterly hunger rate was due to decreases in the incidence of hunger among both the self-rated poor and self-rated non-poor families.
From September to December, quarterly hunger rate decreased by 3.6 points among the self-rated poor, while it decreased by 1.5 points among the non-poor.
The survey also showed that hunger fell among the self-rated food poor which is at 17.5 percent from 22.3 percent, and among the not food-poor/food-borderline at 6.9 percent from 8.2 percent.
The survey was done from December 16-19, 2018, using a face-to-face interview with its 1,440 survey respondents nationwide.