PH hunger rate drops in Q3 — SWS
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 17:55:01 +0000
Hunger level in the Philippines dropped in the third quarter of 2019, according to the latest poll of the Social Weather Stations (SWS).
The survey, conducted from September 27 to 30 among 1,800 Filipino adults nationwide, showed that 9.1 percent or 2.3 million families experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months.
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“This is a recovery from the 10.0 percent (estimated 2.5 million) in June 2019, following an increase from the 9.5 percent (estimated 2.3 million families) in March,” SWS said.
The 9.1 percent quarterly hunger in September is the sum of 7.1 percent (estimated 1.8 million families) who experienced moderate hunger and 1.7 percent (estimated 426,000 families) who experienced severe hunger.
Moderate hunger means going hungry “only once” or “a few times” in the last three months, while severe hunger means being hungry often in the last three months.
Compared to June figures, SWS said moderate hunger went down from 8.7 percent (estimated 2.1 million families) while severe hunger went up from 1.3 percent(estimated 320,000 families).
It attributed the lower hunger rate to the decline in the incidence of hunger in Metro Manila, Balance Luzon and Visayas, but slight increase in Mindanao.
The nationwide quarterly hunger incidence consisted of 7.4 percent (about 520,000 families) in Metro Manila, 8.1 percent (about 1.0 million families) in the rest of Luzon, 8.7 percent (about 409,000 families) in Visayas, and 11.9 percent (about 673,000 families) in Mindanao.
Meanwhile, moderate hunger in Metro Manila went down from 13.7 percent in June to 7.7 percent in September, while severe hunger in the metropolis went down from 2.0 percent to 0.7 percent.
In the rest of Luzon, moderate hunger went down from 8.3 percent in June to 6.8 percent in September. However, severe hunger also rose from 1.0 percent to 1.3 percent.
Moderate hunger in Visayas also went down from 8.0 percent in June to 6.7 percent inSeptember, while severe hunger rose from 0.7 percent to 2.0 percent.
In Mindanao, moderate hunger went up from 7.0 percent in June to 9.1 percent in September, while severe hunger also increased from 2.0 percent to 2.9 percent.
The poll, conducted using face-to-face interviews, has sampling error margins of ±2.3 percent for national percentages, ±4 percent each for Balance Luzon and Mindanao, and ±6 percent each for Metro Manila and the Visayas. CATHERINE S. VALENTE