A million fewer hungry households

THE NEW national proportion of households experiencing involuntary hunger sometime in the last three months has subsided to 15.1 percent (estimate, 3.0 million households), according to the Social Weather Survey of June 3-6, 2011, first reported yesterday in BusinessWorld.

This is a very substantial, and statistically significant, 5.4-point drop from the previous quarterly hunger rate of 20.5 percent (estimate, 4.1 million households), found by the Social Weather Survey of March 4-7, 2011 (see my April 9th column “Hunger: the most urgent problem”).

With the current total number of households in the Philippines officially projected at 20.15 million, the 5.4 point drop amounts to fully a million fewer hungry households, between the first and second quarters of this year.

The total hunger rate of 15.1 percent consists of 13.1 percent Moderate Hunger (defined as experiencing it only once or a few times) and 2.0 percent Severe Hunger (experiencing it often or always).

The new Severe Hunger rate is the lowest since 2003, and thus is very encouraging. The lowest Severe Hunger rate in the entire data series, which started in July 1998, is  0.8 percent recorded in March 2003.

Trends in hunger over time.  The new national hunger percentage represents a recovery to the starting rate of 15.9 percent under the current administration, as surveyed in September 2010.  Later it grew to 18.1 percent in the November 2010 survey, and then to 20.5 percent in March 2011, before subsiding now to 15.1 percent in June 2011.

The average of 15.9, 18.5, 20.5 and 15.1 is equal to 17.4.  This is the average quarterly percentage of hungry households in the first 12 months of President Aquino’s watch.

Thankfully, it is below the average hunger percentages in the last three and a half years of President Arroyo’s administration, which were as follows: 17.9 in 2007, 18.5 in 2008, 19.2 in 2009, and 21.1 in the first semester of 2010.

Yet it is still above the average hunger percentages of the earlier six Arroyo years. In the first three of those years, the average hunger percentage fell nicely, from 11.4 in 2001 to 10.1 in 2002, and then to 7.0 in 2003. However, in the next three years hunger turned around and grew, to 11.8 in 2004, and then to 14.3 in 2005, and to 16.7 in 2006. And it continued growing so much during 2007-2010 as to reach 21.1 percent in the first half of 2010, or three times the low point of 7.0 percent in 2003.

The government should do research to explain why hunger rose during 2004-2010, after falling in 2001-2003. It should find out the mistakes that should not be repeated. So much ground in the fight against hunger was lost during 2004-2010, and so much still needs to be recovered.

I am citing yearly averages, since experience shows that hunger can be volatile from quarter to quarter. Hunger is permanently on the SWS quarterly survey agenda; June 2011 was our 54th time to survey it nationally, since 1998. If new findings stay favorable, confidence will grow that the June 2011 recovery is not temporary.

I believe that survey respondents are honest both when they say they are hungry, and when they say they are not. To deride what they say as “subjective” is arrogant and unscientific.

Geographical differences in hunger trends.    The recent drop in hunger, though nationally meaningful, was not generalized throughout the country. It can be examined along the four geographical strata for which the standard SWS surveys are designed, namely Metro Manila, the Balance of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

Between the first and second quarters of 2011, hunger fell very sharply—in fact, by more than half—in the Balance of Luzon, and fell substantially in Metro Manila. These drops were large enough to offset increases in hunger in the Visayas and Mindanao.

In the Balance of Luzon, hunger fell from 25.0 percent in the March survey to only 9.7 percent in the June survey. The last time that hunger went single-digit in the Balance of Luzon was December 2004, almost seven years ago.

In Metro Manila, hunger fell by more than one-third, from 20.7 percent in March to 13.0 percent in June. The last time that hunger in the national capital region was this low was September 2006, almost five years ago.

On the other hand, hunger rose in the Visayas, from 14.7 percent in March to 21.0 percent in June. It rose as well in Mindanao, from 16.7 percent in March to 21.7 percent in June. Such high levels are not unusual. Hunger rates in the Visayas and Mindanao had already exceeded 20 percent many times during the Arroyo period.

The scientific way for the government to fight hunger is to continuously study the hunger trends, in various time periods and areas, and search for the factors behind them. Food prices, general prices, wages and employment, NFA distribution, natural disasters, subsidy programs, security problems, and so forth are candidate explanatory variables.

One thing is definite: growth in Gross Domestic Product cannot be relied on to trickle down to the hungry.

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The SWS quarterly surveys are the only available source of statistics that track Philippine hunger regularly and promptly. The government’s National Nutrition Survey (NNS) is done only every five years—the last in 2008, and so the next will be in 2013, with its report due in 2014.  For non-NNS years, the government plays blind to other numbers.

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Contact SWS: www.sws.org.ph or mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.