More families experienced hunger at least once as the Aquino administration ended its term in June, a Social Weather Stations survey said.
The survey conducted from June 24 to 27 among 1,200 respondents said 13.2 percent experienced “moderate hunger” or suffered from involuntary hunger “only once” or “a few times” in the past three months.
This brings to an estimated 3.4 million the number of families that experienced involuntary hunger in the past three months, 300,000 more than the 3.1 million recorded in the first quarter poll from January to April.
The SWS attributed the increase in the overall hunger rate from 13.7 percent to 15.2 percent in the past three months to the number of families that went hungry in Luzon (from 1.2 million families to 1.5 million), Visayas (449,000 families to 681,000) and Metro Manila (429,000 families to 521,000).
There was a difference in Mindanao as the number declined to 687,000 families from 978,000.
The SWS said hunger refers to the involuntary suffering due to lack of food to eat. (Vanne Elaine P. Terrazola)