More families in Metro Manila and Mindanao said they experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the first quarter of 2018, according to the latest Social Weather Stations survey.
SWS said this was the lowest since September 2015.
In its latest 2018 poll, SWS found that 9.4 percent or around 2.2 million families experienced involuntary hunger at least once from April to June.
The survey said this was 0.5 percentage point below the 9.9 percent, or 2.3 million families, quarterly hunger rate in March 2018.
It was also only the third time the hunger rate had been in the single-digit range since March 2004.
The latest figure for hunger in Metro Manila was up by 7.0 percent (from 6.0 percent in March 2018) to 13.0 percent in June 2018, while hunger in Balance Luzon fell by 3.7 percent (from 11.0 percent in March 2018) to 7.3 percent in June.
The SWS classifies experiencing hunger “only once” or “a few times” in the last three months as moderate hunger, and going hungry “often” or “always” in the last three months as severe hunger.
SWS said the 9.4 percent was arrived at by adding the 8.1 percent of those surveyed who said they experienced “moderate hunger” and the 1.3 percent who said they experienced “severe hunger.”
In the Visayas, hunger dropped by 3.7 percent from 13.0 percent in March 2018 to 9.3 percent in June.
In Mindanao, hunger rose 4.0 percent from 7.3 percent in March to 11.3 percent in June.
The survey noted that the drop in the quarterly hunger rate between March and June 2018 was due to the decrease in the incidence of hunger among the Self-Rated Poor, offset by an increase among the Self-Rated Non-Poor.
From March to June, quarterly hunger fell by 4.1 percent among the Self-Rated Poor, or from 16.7 percent in March to 12.6 percent in June.
Quarterly hunger, however, rose by 1.6 percent among the Non-Poor over the same period, going from 4.9 percent to 6.5 percent.
Hunger also fell among the Self-Rated Food Poor, falling by 6 percent from 20.8 percent in March to 14.8 percent in June.
The survey was conducted from June 27 to 30, 2018 using face-to-face interviews with 1,200 adults nationwide. It had sampling error margins of ±3 percent for national percentages and ±6 percent each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.