By Pearl Gumapos
Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles on Sunday said the national government will continue to step up efforts to eradicate hunger following a survey showing 49% of Filipinos said they “felt poor.”
Nograles, who is also chair of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Zero Hunger, said in a press statement that the figures were expected, given the limitations in livelihood as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
Nograles acknowledged results of the national Social Weather Survey (SWS) of April 28-May 2, 2021, which found that only 17% of Filipino families rated themselves as “not poor”, 49% rated themselves as “poor”, and 33% rated themselves as “borderline poor.”
In November 2020, the SWS survey showed that the percentage of people who said they were “poor” was 48 %.
Of the estimated 12.4 million “poor” families in May 2021, 2.4 million were “newly poor”, 1.2 million were “usually poor”, and 8.8 million were “always poor”, the SWS survey showed.
Nograles, however, said it is also worthy to note that the formation of the Zero Hunger task force and efforts by the Department of Agriculture to improve local food production “may have had a positive impact and may have helped prevent self-rated food poverty numbers in 2020 from increasing due to the pandemic lockdowns.”
“We also believe that there is growing evidence that tells us that the government should stay the course in its programs while stepping up efforts to stamp out hunger,” he said.
According to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Nograles said the country’s estimated self-sufficiency for ratio aggregated food products had increased from 81.3% in 2019 to 83% in 2020, which means that 83% of the country’s food supply in 2020 came from domestic production.
As of now, Nograles said the Zero Hunger task force is looking into recent self-rated food poverty survey data to identify the areas of concern that need to be addressed.
Last January 2020, Duterte signed Executive Order No. 101 which created a task force that will help fast-track the government’s campaign to fight hunger.
The task force ensures that government policies, initiatives, and projects on attaining zero hunger will be “coordinated, responsive, and effective.” – rir
