The Fourth Quarter 2022 Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey found that most Filipino families received help, most commonly money or food that was given in the past three months.

The survey results released on Monday, April 17 showed that the most common form of help was money that was given (32 percent), followed by food (25 percent), money that was lent (6 percent), non-food items (2 percent), support for schooling or training (2 percent), any kind of service (2 percent), and jobs (2 percent).

SWS noted that the respondent-household heads were allowed to give more than one answer.

Meanwhile, 47 percent of families did not receive any help in the past three months.

Fourth Quarter 2022 Social Weather Report (SWS)

Gov’t top source of aid

The survey also found that among families that received help in the past three months, 60 percent got it from the government, 37 percent from their relatives, 11 percent from friends, 5 percent from a private person who is not a relative or friend, 3 percent from private companies, 3 percent from non-government organizations (NGOs), and 1 percent from religious organizations.

“Since December 2019, money that was given or “money-help” was the most common form of help received by families, except in September 2021 when food (38 percent) and money-help (35 percent) were the top two forms of help received by families,” SWS said.

“Among families that received help, the government was the most common source—reaching as high as 75 percent in April 2021–except in December 2019 when the government (48 percent) and relatives (45 percent) were the top two sources of help,” it added.

‘Money-help’ most common form of help in all areas

SWS said that in all areas, money-help was the most common form of help received by the families in the past three months, ranging from 31 percent to 34 percent.

Food was the second most mentioned form of help: it was 31 percent in Metro Manila, 27 percent in Mindanao, 24 percent in Balance Luzon, and 19 percent in the Visayas.

Meanwhile, other forms of help got single-digit mentions.

However, SWS said the percentage of families that did not receive any help in the past three months was higher in the Visayas (54 percent) than in Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, and Mindanao (46 percent each).

“Among families who got help, the government was the most mentioned source in all areas: 67 percent in both Mindanao and the Visayas, 58 percent in Metro Manila, and 56 percent in Balance Luzon. Relatives were the second most common sources of help, cited by 41 percent in Balance Luzon, 40 percent in Metro Manila, 34 percent in Mindanao, and 28 percent in the Visayas,” it said.

The survey was conducted from Dec. 10-14, 2022, using face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults, 18 years old and above, nationwide.

It has sampling error margins of +/-2.8% for national percentages and +/-5.7 percent each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.