Tuesday, May 20, 2008 40% of Pinoy families say they are food-poor
TWO out of five (40 percent) or about 7.1 million Filipino families consider themselves food-poor in the first quarter of 2008, up from the 34 percent (6.04 million families) in December 2007, the March 28-31 survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) revealed.
The results of the SWS survey were obtained by asking the 1,200 randomly selected respondents nationwide to rate themselves based on the type of food that they have eaten in the first quarter.
SWS said self-rated food poverty has been on a downtrend since June 2006 but bounced back to 43 percent in September 2007.
The survey showed that 32 percent consider themselves as Not Food-Poor while 29 percent of Filipino families put themselves on the Food-Borderline.
SWS attributed the rise in overall self-rated food poverty to the 11-point increase in Mindanao (from 39 percent in December to 50 percent in March). It also went up in Metro Manila (from 28 to 35 percent) and in Luzon (from 35 to 39 percent).
However, it remained at 32 percent in the Visayas.
SWS said the Self-Rated Food Poverty Threshold, or the monthly food budget that poor households need in order not to consider themselves poor in terms of food, has been sluggish for several years despite considerable inflation.
"The failure of the thresholds to increase despite so much inflation is a sign that the poor are actually lowering their real living standards," it said.
The polling firm placed the March 2008 median food-poverty thresholds for poor households in Mindanao at P3,000, which has been achieved nine years ago. It was at P3,500 in Luzon, P4,000 in the Visayas, and P5,000 in Metro Manila -- all of which have already been surpassed.
Because of the reduced purchasing power, it said the threshold of P5,000 in Metro Manila is now equivalent to only P3,571. (JMR/Sunnex)
