MANILA -- An independent pollster on Friday said hunger incidence in the country posted a four-year low in June.
The number of Filipinos who experienced hunger once in three months has gone down to three million in June from 4.1 million last March, a new Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll showed.
This means that involuntary hunger decreased to 15.1 percent in the second quarter as opposed to 20.5 percent recorded in March, the highest rate posted under the Aquino administration.
The figure is also quite close to the 14.7-percent incidence registered in June 2007 as SWS attributed the decline from lower number of people who experienced “moderate” and “severe” hunger.
SWS defined “moderate” hunger as those who experienced it “only once” or a “few times” while “severe” are those people who experience it “often”.
Both the highest and lowest (7.4 percent, March 2004) hunger incidence, meanwhile, were recorded during the time of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. (Virgil Lopez/Sunnex)