Three million Filipino families or an estimated 11.8 percent experienced involuntary hunger at least once in three months of 2022, according to the latest Social Weather Station's (SWS) survey.
In its national survey conducted from December 10 to 14, 2022, SWS said the hunger figure slightly rose from the 11.3 percent hunger rate recorded in October 2022 and 11.6 percent in June 2022.
"The 0.5-point increase in Overall Hunger between October 2022 and December 2022 was due to increases in the Visayas and Balance Luzon, combined with decreases in Metro Manila and Mindanao," it said.
Mindanao had the highest hunger rate with 12.7 percent of families, Visayas followed with 12 percent, Metro Manila with 11.7 percent, and Balance Luzon with 11.3 percent.
According to SWS, Mindanao had the highest hunger figure in 38 out of 100 surveys since July 1998.
Moderate and severe hunger
The survey also showed that of the 11.9 percent overall December 2022 hunger rate, about 9.5 percent are families who experienced moderate hunger or those who went hungry only once or a few times.
While 2.3 percent of the 11.9 percent of December hunger experienced severe hunger.
On the other hand, SWS also found that 34 percent of families rated themselves as food-poor, 38 percent said they are borderline food poor, and 28 percent considered themselves as not food poor.
