Hunger among Filipino families inches up to 20% in April — SWS

Hunger among Filipino families slightly increased to 20 percent in late April 2025, according to the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey released Saturday.

The figure, recorded in the SWS First Quarter 2025 Social Weather Survey conducted from 23 to 28 April, represents a modest rise from 19.1 percent in the previous survey held 11 to 15 April. This follows a significant drop from 27.2 percent in March 2025.

SWS defines involuntary hunger as experiencing hunger and having nothing to eat at least once in the past three months.

The 20 percent total is composed of 16.4 percent of families who experienced "moderate hunger" — defined as hunger that occurred "only once" or "a few times" — and 3.6 percent who experienced "severe hunger," or hunger that happened "often" or "always."

Regionally, hunger was highest in Mindanao at 26.3 percent, followed by Metro Manila at 20.3 percent, the Visayas at 19.7 percent, and Balance Luzon at 17 percent.

Compared to the earlier April survey, hunger increased in Mindanao (up 9 points from 17.3 percent) and the Visayas (up 5.4 points from 14.3 percent), but decreased in Metro Manila (down 5.7 points from 26 percent) and Balance Luzon (down 3.5 points from 20.5 percent).

Despite the slight rise in the latest survey, hunger levels remain significantly lower than the March 2025 figure of 27.2 percent.

Total hunger peaked at 35.6 percent in March before dropping to 24.4 percent in mid-April, and then slightly climbing to 25.9 percent by the end of the month.

The survey also found that hunger was more prevalent among self-identified food-poor families.

Overall, 41 percent of families considered themselves food-poor, while 7 percent placed themselves at the borderline between food-poor and not food-poor, and 51 percent said they were not food-poor.

Regarding self-rated poverty, 50 percent of respondents considered themselves poor, 8 percent at the borderline, and 42 percent not poor. This marks an improvement from December 2024, when 63 percent or around 17.4 million families identified as poor — the highest level in 21 years.

Among those who identified as non-poor (either not poor or borderline), the incidence of hunger rose slightly to 14.1 percent in the latest survey, up from 13.4 percent in mid-April, but still down from 18.3 percent in March.

The survey was conducted through face-to-face interviews with 1,500 adult respondents nationwide: 600 from Balance Luzon, and 300 each from Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao.

The national sampling error margin is ±3 percent, while the margins for the major areas are ±4 percent for Balance Luzon and ±6 percent for the other regions.

The survey results were weighted using the Philippine Statistics Authority’s 2025 medium-population projections.