Survey: Pinoys' self-rated food poverty up at 40%

from ABS CBN News

More Filipinos said they are getting poorer in terms of food as the overall self-poverty rating went up by six percent since the last quarter of 2007, results from the latest Social Weather Stations survey said Monday.

"Two out of five (40%), or about 7.1 million Filipino families consider themselves 'mahirap' or poor in terms of food, according to the First Quarter 2008 Social Weather Survey, fielded over March 28-31, 2008," the SWS survey analysis said.

The analysis compared results taken from similar surveys in October-December 2007 (all-time low of 34%) and June 2006 (37%). It also listed the 43-percent self-poverty rating recorded in September last year.

SWS said the March survey is the latest in the series that began in 1988 when the research firm began asking household heads to rate their families "based in the type of food they eat."

"The March 2008 survey found that 32% consider themselves as Not Food-Poor, and 29% of Filipino families put themselves on the Food-Borderline," SWS said.

The survey anaylisis, meanwhile, attributed the rise in overall self-rated food poverty to the 11-point increase in Mindanao from the last quarter of 2007. From 39 pecent in December last year, Mindanao's self-rated food poverty rating went up to 50 percent in March.

'We're poor'

Self-rated food poverty also went up in Metro Manila, from 28 percent to 35 percent and in Balance Luzon, from 35 percent to 39 percent, SWS said.

It has been at 32 percent in the Visayas from December to March, after declining from 40 percent in June 2007 to 33 percent in September, the survey firm added, citing survey results.

SWS said the March 2008 threshold for Mindanao was P3,000. It was P3,500 in Balance of Luzon, P4,000 in the Visayas and P5,000 in Metro Manila.

The survey firm said the Mindanao threshold was already achieved nine years ago while those in the three other other areas were surpassed several years ago.

SWS said the survey used face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults divided into random samples of 300 each in Metro Manila, the Balance of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.