PEOPLE who felt hungry in late April were highest in Mindanao, as the self-rated hunger score rose by five to nine points in the Visayas and Mindanao, respectively, the pre-election survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) from April 23 to 28 showed.
The survey, which involved 1,500 adult respondents with a margin of error of ±3 percent, showed that hunger in Mindanao rose to 26.3 percent from 17. 3 percent two weeks before or from April 11- 15.
It also rose in the Visayas to 19.7 percent from 14. 3 percent
Hunger was second highest in Metro Manila, despite a 6-percentage point drop, at 20.3 percent.
Hunger score also declined to 17 percent from 20.5 percent in the rest of Luzon.
Across the country, self-rated hunger was statistically unchanged at 20 percent from 19.1 percent.
It was composed of 16.4 percent who said they experienced moderate hunger (up from 15.2 percent) and 3.6 percent who said they felt severe hunger (from 3.9 percent).
SWS defined moderate hunger as those who experienced hunger “only once” or “a few times” in the last three months, while severe hunger referred to those who experienced it “often” or “always” in the last three months.
The polling firm also found that self-rated hunger was slightly up among families who had rated themselves as poor at 25.9 percent (from 24.4 percent), and those who said that they are not poor at 14.1 percent (from 13.4 percent).
It went down by 7 percentage points to 28.4 percent (from 35.7 percent) among the families who claimed to be food-poor and by 1.5 percentage points among those who said they are not food-poor at 14.1 percent (from 15.6 percent).
SWS, in its previously released poll, found that 50 percent of Filipinos said their families are poor and 42 percent are not poor, while 41 percent said they are food-poor and 51 percent are not food-poor.
