No food on the table as there is no money to buy food in the first place.

Mangahas said that the general poverty and the food poverty rates reached an all time high of 59% and 49%, respectively¹, The figures are based on a self-rating survey conducted by the SWS in the second quarter of this year from among thousands of households in selected areas of the country.

“Poverty is getting worst,” says Mangahas who got his observations from a ten-year survey (from 1998 to 2008). SWS data show that the average total hunger in a decade’s time is 12.1%. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of the respondents attributed the serious hardship they now experiencing to rise in fuel prices.

Owing to Filipino’s tight kinship, the primary source of help remains to be family, either from immediate or from extended members. Survey results also show that next to family, the poor people look to government as their second source of help in the form of food.

Social surveys serve as barometers of public conditions and opinions. They provide up-to-date social monitoring, which can be of valuable use for planners, decision-makers, policy-holders, and of course, government officials.

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¹Paper presented by Dr. Mahar Mangahas, President and CEO, Social Weather Stations during the Agriculture and Development Seminar Series(ADSS) titled Hunger in the Philippines: Ten Years of Quarterly SWS Surveys, 7 October 2008