MANILA, Philippines—The proportion of families experiencing involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months has declined by 2.8 percentage points, or the equivalent of 500,000 families, according to a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.
However, the latest overall hunger rate was still higher than the average hunger rate over the past 11 years, SWS said.
The SWS 3rd Quarter 2009 survey, conducted from Sept. 18 to 21 and released Tuesday, found that hunger in the country had declined to 17.5 percent (or about 3.2 million families), from 20.3 percent (3.7 million families) in June.
The survey was conducted before Tropical Storms “Ondoy” (international codename: Ketsana) and “Pepeng” (Parma) ravaged Luzon.
“Hunger has consistently been in double-digits for over five years, since June 2004. The latest hunger figure is 5 percentage points above the 11-year average of 12.9 percent,” SWS said.
Questions
Survey questions about household hunger were directed to the household head, using the phrase “nakaranas ng gutom at wala kayong makain” (“experienced hunger, and did not have anything to eat”).
The decline by 2 percentage points in overall hunger resulted from a 1.5-point decline in moderate hunger, and a 1.3-point decline in severe hunger.
“Moderate hunger,” or those who experienced hunger “only once” or “a few times” in the last three months, went down from 16 percent (2.9 million families) in June to 14.5 percent (2.7 million families) in September.
The latest figure is 5 percentage points above the 11-year average moderate hunger of 9.5 percent.
“Severe hunger,” or those who suffered hunger “often” or “always” in the last three months, went down from 4.3 percent (about 790,000 families) in June to 3 percent (550,000 families) in September. The new figure is below the 11-year average severe hunger rate of 3.4 percent.
Except Metro Manila
Overall hunger declined in all areas, except Metro Manila.
It dropped by more than 10 percentage points in Mindanao, from 30 percent (about 1.3 million families) in June to 19.7 percent (800,000 families) in September.
It declined by 2 percentage points in the Visayas, from 21 percent (about 775,000 families) to 19 percent (700,000 families), and by almost 1 percentage point in the rest of Luzon, from 14.3 percent (1.2 million families) to 13.5 percent (1.1 million families).
In Metro Manila, however, hunger increased by more than 2 percentage points, from 22.3 percent (550,000 families) to 24.7 percent (600,000 families).
Moderate hunger declined in Mindanao by almost 9 percentage points, from 25.3 percent in the previous quarter to 16.7 percent.
In the Visayas, moderate hunger fell by almost 3 percentage points from 18.7 percent to 16.1 percent.
It rose by almost 4 percentage points in Metro Manila, from 15.3 percent to 19.0 percent, and by a point in the rest of Luzon, from 10.2 percent to 11.3 percent.
“The latest moderate hunger rates are higher than their 11-year averages for all areas,” SWS said.
Severe hunger
Severe hunger declined by 2 percentage points in the rest of Luzon, from 4.2 percent in June to 2.2 percent in September, also by 2 percentage points in Mindanao, from 4.7 percent to 3.0 percent, and by more than a percentage point in Metro Manila, from 7.0 percent to 5.7 percent.
It rose by almost a percentage point in the Visayas, from 2.3 percent in the previous quarter to 2.9 percent.
“The new severe hunger rates are now lower than their 11-year averages for all areas except in Metro Manila, where the latest score of 5.7 percent is higher than its 11-year average of 3.4 percent,” SWS said.
The latest SWS survey was conducted using to face-to-face interviews of 1,800 adults divided into random samples of 300 each in Metro Manila and Mindanao, and 600 each in the rest of Luzon and the Visayas.
It had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points for national percentages, plus or minus 6 percentage points for Metro Manila and Mindanao, and plus or minus 4 percentage points for the rest of Luzon and the Visayas. Eliza Victoria, Inquirer Research
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