Fewer hungry families in Q1 — SWS
FEWER FILIPINO families reported experiencing involuntary hunger in the last three months than before, according to the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey — results that, aid workers said, should give the Duterte government more impetus to boost social services.
The First Quarter 2017 Social Weather Survey showed that 11.9% or an estimated 2.7 million households did not have enough food to get by at least once, two points below the 13.9% (estimated 3.1 million families) logged in the December poll. A year ago, the hunger rate was 13.7%.
The pollster interviewed face- to- face 1,200 adults nationwide from March 25 to 28 for this survey. The latest poll has sampling error margins of ± 3 points for quarterly national percentages (±6% each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao) and ±1.5 points for annual averages.
The measure of hunger refers to involuntary suffering because the respondents answer a survey question that specifies hunger due to lack of food to eat, SWS said.
The pollster attributed the two- point decline to fewer families reporting hunger from what it bracketed as “self-rated poor” and “self-rated non-poor,” as well as from the “self-rated food poor” and “self-rated food non-poor.”
The quarterly hunger rate fell by 3.9 points among the self-rated poor to 17.1%.
The survey showed a 4.2 point decline in hunger rate among the self-rated foodpoor to 20.7% in the first quarter. According to SWS, quarterly hunger rate among the self-rated food-poor is always greater than hunger among the self-rated poor “at any one point in time.”
MODERATE, SEVERE HUNGER
Both “moderate hunger” and “severe hunger” fell, the quarterly survey said.
Moderate hunger dropped by 1.2 points in the first quarter to 9.7% (estimated 2.2 million households) from the previous survey’s 10.9%. Meanwhile, severe hunger logged a 0.8- point decline to 2.2% ( estimated 510,000 households).
SWS defined “moderate hunger” as 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,” SWS explained.
HUNGER RISES IN MINDANAO
The same survey also bared a drop in the hunger rate in Metro Manila and the other regions, except in Mindanao, the bailiwick of President Rodrigo R. Duterte.
In Metro Manila, hunger rate overall fell by 1.0 point to 12% — moderate hunger there rose 2.0 points to 10%, while severe hunger fell by 3 points to 2%.
In Balance Luzon, the hunger rate registered at 11.3%, down by 3.7 points from the last survey. In terms of degree, both severe and moderate hunger in that region fell to 2.3% and 9%, respectively.
Hunger rate plummeted by 3.0 points in the Visayas to 13.7%. Moderate hunger in the area dropped by 2.3 points to 11.7% while severe hunger sank 0.7 points to 2.0%.
In Mindanao, the hunger rate rose by 1.7 points to 11.7%, while moderate hunger in the island dove by 0.4 points to 9.3%. Severe hunger surged by 2.0 points in Mindanao to 2.3% from the record-low 0.3% to log its highest reading since December 2015.
“DOUBLY HARD”
Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto C. Abella said the survey result “affirms the Duterte administration’s poverty allevia-
tion efforts, which are beginning to make a positive impact on those inhabiting the lowest rung of society.”
“Our long-term goal, however, is to better the lives of Filipinos, through effective delivery of goods and services like higher infrastructure investments and the promotion of easy access microfinancing system,” Mr. Abella said in a mobile phone reply.
Social Welfare Secretary Judy M. Taguiwalo said that as long as surveys reveal that there are hungry Filipinos, government agencies “should work doubly hard to respond to [the] needs of the poor and hungry.”
“The goal of all government agencies should be to eradicate hunger once and for all,” Ms. Taguiwalo said in a separate text message. “This is why we support calls for higher wages, genuine agrarian reform, and increasing allocations for social welfare programs.
Also sought for comment, Arze Glipo, executive director at non-government organization Integrated Rural Development Foundation (IRDF), said the latest SWS survey results could be attributed to “the start of harvest season which enabled some farming households to have access to cheaper rice.”
However, “the figures remain alarming that about 2.7 million families still experience hunger,” Ms. Glipo said, adding that policy makers and agencies should “increase investments” in farm productivity programs to achieve food self-sufficiency.