Palace Eyes Further Reduction in Average Hunger Rate

Manila — With a significant drop in the number of Filipinos experiencing hunger in the fourth quarter of last year, as a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed, Malacañang said it hopes to lift more people out of poverty.

In a press briefing at the Palace on Friday, Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte said she has yet to study the factors that contributed to the one million decline in the number of people who experienced hunger in the last quarter of 2014.

Valte however expressed hope that the figure would continue to decrease through the government’s poverty alleviation programs.

“Hopefully, this will continue to go down. I think everyone is united in that particular hope that the numbers continue to go down. If you study, at least the past surveys, they do tend to fluctuate and hopefully it will start a downward trend,” she said.

The SWS survey, conducted nationwide from November 27 to December 1 last year, showed that 17.2 percent of the 1,800 adults interviewed said they experienced hunger at least once in the past three months.

The survey estimated that 3.8 million families experienced hunger in the last quarter of 2014, compared to 4.8 million families, or 22 percent, in the third quarter of that year. PND (as)