About 10.4% of Filipino families experienced involuntary hunger and not having anything to eat at least once in the past three months, according to the latest Social Weather Survey (SWS).
The figure represents around 12.5 million households who considered themselves poor during the second quarter of 2023, while 5.2 million families rated themselves as not poor.
The hunger rating was up from 9.8% obtained in a survey in March, but down from 11.8% in December 2022, the survey showed.
The SWS said the latest hunger rate was the sum of 8.3% of respondents who said they experienced moderate hunger and 2.1% who experienced severe hunger. 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.
The SWS also said the hunger rate rose sharply among non-poor families to 10.3% in June from 3.9% in March. It, however, fell among Filipino families who rated themselves as poor to 10.5% from 15.4%.
The SWS survey was conducted from June 28 to July 1, 2023, using face-to-face interviews of 1,500 adults (18 years old and above) nationwide: 600 in Balance Luzon, and 300 each in Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao.
The sampling error margins are ±2.5% for national percentages, ±4.0% in Balance Luzon, and ±5.7% each for Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao.
As of June 2023, the experience of hunger was highest in Metro Manila at 15.7%, followed by Balance Luzon (or Luzon outside Metro Manila) at 11.3%, the Visayas at 9.3%, and Mindanao at 6.3% of families.
The 0.6-point rise in Overall Hunger between March 2023 and June 2023 was due to increases in Metro Manila and Balance Luzon, combined with a steady percentage in the Visayas and a sharp decline in Mindanao.
Meanwhile, the latest SWS survey also found that 45% of Filipino families rating themselves as Mahirap or Poor, 33% rating themselves as Borderline, and 22% rate themselves as Hindi Mahirap or Not Poor.
In terms of hunger and based on the quality of food eaten by their families, the June 2023 survey showed that 34% of families rating themselves as Food-Poor, 38% rating themselves as Food Borderline (by placing themselves on the horizontal line dividing Food-Poor and Not Food-Poor), and 29% rate themselves Not Food-Poor.