Wednesday, July 23, 2008 2.9 million Filipinos suffer involuntary hunger By Cong Corrales
MADE of discarded commercial tarpaulin, the hut stands out in a row of shanties in Isla Delta in Barangay Consolacion, Cagayan de Oro City.
Inside the four-square meter hut they called home, 43-year-old Lando, his wife, Merlyn, and their three children shared a meal of two pieces of dried fish and rice.
Lando grilled the dried fish or "bulad" because he does not have enough money to buy cooking oil to fry it.
It was eleven noon and the meal was their first and only one for the day.
Lando and his family are among the 2.9 million Filipinos who have experienced involuntary hunger in the country.
"Sa gabii, kung gutomon ang mga bata, bahugan lang namo og kape ang kan-on para naay lasa (At night when the children are hungry, we gave them only rice. We mixed some coffee to the rice to give it some taste)," Lando told Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro.
Lando is so ashamed of their poverty that he asked this writer not to include his family name in this news story.
"Kada adlaw ga drive ko og sikad pero pag uli nako P60 ra jud ang makita (I drive a sikad everyday but I only earned P60)," Lando said.
His wife, Merlyn, does an occasional laundry jobs for some of their well-to-do neighbors in a nearby subdivision but her earnings are still not enough to feed their children, Junior, 12 years old; Mikaela, three; and five-month-old Dana.
"Morag naanad man hinoon akong mga anak sa among kahimtang. Nuwebe ka bulan na kami nga one day one eat lang (I think my children is getting used to our poverty. It has been nine months since we started eating one meal a day)," he said.
Nine months ago, Lando said his P60 daily earnings could still buy them one kilo of fish in the market, cooking oil, and milk.
"Karon ang kilo sa NFA P25 na. Taas na pud ang cooking oil og gatas (Now a kilo of NFA rice is P25. Prices of cooking oil and milk have gone up too)," he said.
Across from where Lando lives, Lourderico Pedimonte, 31, is eking a living to feed his family of four in Isla Cupa, also in Barangay Consolacion.
Pedimonte praises God if he got a chance to drive a motorela. As "extrador," Pedimonte can earn more than P100 -- enough to give his family two meals a day.
But he said they scrimp on everything to make both ends meet.
For viand, the Pedimontes buy "ginamos, mongos, and vegetable."
"PDP diskarte karon -- pamahaw dala paniudto (We have breakfast and lunch to save on rice)," Pedimonte said.
The Pedimontes are more affluent than Lando. Their five-meter house is made of discarded plywood but Pedimonte said life is still harsh for them.
"Maayo kung pirmi ko maka extra og drive sa motorela. Kung wala, di pud mi mangaon (My family will have something to eat if I can drive a motorela. If I don't, we have nothing to eat)," he said.
Other poor Cagayan de Oro residents have resorted to mixing their rice with rootcrops to stretch what little money they earned.
Market vendor Ranita Sabado, 31, of Barangay Camaman-an, mixed her rice with camote, a root crop.
"Sagolan nako og camote nga gi-slice nako ginagmay. Usahay saging o luy-a (I mixed it with small slices of camote. Sometimes I mixed it with bananas or cassava)," Sabado said.
"Ganahan man pud ang akong mga anak og kaon (My children loves to eat the meal)," she said.
Lando, the Pedimontes and Sabao are part of a growing number of Cagayan de Oro residents who are waging a daily battle to feed their children amid a backdrop of spiraling food prices and fuel.
Concern
The World Food Program (WFP) said they are very concerned on the effects of hunger among the children.
"We are concerned about the issue of the high food prices, and we do realize... if you just thinking about this, if 80 percent of Filipino household are devoting roughly half of their expenses to food, if the prices of food is going up, clearly there is going to be an impact, and then we do, extremely concerned about this," WFP director Stephen L. Anderson said.
According to the latest survey made by the Social Weather Station (SWS), around 2.9 million Filipinos have experienced involuntary hunger in the last three months.
The hunger in the survey refers to the involuntary suffering due to the lack of anything to eat.
"It was at 15.7 percent in the first quarter, and 16.2 percent in the period before that," said the survey made for BusinessWorld.
Ibon Facts and Figures, another think tank, said government data showed more Filipino families went hungry because they were unable to buy enough food.
It said official government data revealed that 14.6 percent of Filipinos were not able to meet their basic subsistence or food needs, from 13.5 percent in 2003. This means that 12.2 million Filipinos were starving in 2006, up from 10.8 million in 2003.
"Many Filipinos are unable to meet their basic food needs because the daily minimum wage has not kept up with rising cost of living," said Ibon executive editor Rosario Bella Guzman in their website, www.ibon.org.
Guzman said even employed workers are finding it hard to feed their families even with the recent increase of the minimum wages.
She said underemployment rate, or the percentage of employed workers who said they were looking for more work, grew to 6.6 million workers during the survey period, from 6.4 million in the same period last year. More significantly, the growth was in those considered "invisibly" underemployed, or those who already worked 40 hours or more a week.
"This means that many wage and salary workers employed in the formal sector do not earn enough for their needs. These figures could even be understated, according to Ibon, since only those surveyed who reported that they were seeking more work were classified as underemployed," Guzman said.
Spin
Press Secretary Jesus Dureza and deputy presidential spokesperson Lorelei Fajardo said the increases in hunger incidence especially in Metro Manila was influenced by the global crisis on food and fuel.
Dureza pointed out a positive spin on the data, saying that there was a slight improvement in other areas, especially Mindanao.
He said the lower hunger incidents in Mindanao came despite the global problem on food and the armed conflict in some parts of the island.
"It's very indicative of a positive result dito sa ginagawa ng ating gobyerno in addressing the challenges of Mindanao," Dureza said.
Fajardo said the government has already taken remedial steps to address the food situation including the continuous subsidy of the National Food Authority rice, which is still at the lowest price in Asia.
Senator Mar Roxas urged President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to address the high incidence of hunger in next week's State of the Nation Address (Sona).
"We don't need a litany of achievements and new promises. We can't have another Sona that only repackages existing projects under new names. What we need is an honest statement on the state of the nation-the state of people's empty pockets and grumbling stomachs-and a real, focused action plan on how we are going to get out of this mire of uncertainty," Roxas said in a statement emailed to Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro.
"Things are bound to get worse with what's happening now, and with how the government is addressing it," he said.
"Bago ang lahat, pagkain muna. Pagkakataon itong Sona para itutok ng Pangulo ang buong atensyon ng buong gobyerno sa problema sa pagkain at sa kakulangan at sobrang-kamahal ng pagkain sa bansa natin (Food before everything else. The Sona is an opportunity for the President to focus the government's attention to our food price and supply crisis)," Roxas said.
