A Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey conducted from June 25 to 29 found that 16.1 percent of Filipino families experienced involuntary hunger, defined as going hungry with nothing to eat, at least once in the past three months.

SWS said this is a decline of 3.9 percentage points from 20 percent in the previous survey conducted from April 23 to 28.

The survey results released on Friday, Aug. 15 showed that hunger was most prevalent in Metro Manila and the Visayas, where 21.7 percent of families reported experiencing hunger.

This was followed by Balance Luzon, or Luzon outside Metro Manila, at 15.3 percent, and Mindanao at 9.7 percent.

The 3.9-point drop in hunger was primarily driven by a sharp decline in Mindanao, where hunger fell 16.6 points from 26.3 percent in April to 9.7 percent in June.

Balance Luzon also saw a decrease of 1.7 points, from 17 percent to 15.3 percent.

Conversely, hunger rates slightly increased in the Visayas by two points (from 19.7 to 21.7 percent) and in Metro Manila by 1.4 points (from 20.3 to 21.7 percent).

SWS also noted that of the 16.1 percent overall hunger rate, 12.8 percent experienced moderate hunger, defined as going hungry “only once” or “a few times” in the past three months.

Meanwhile, 3.3 percent experienced severe hunger, which means experiencing hunger “often” or “always” during the same period.

Compared to April, moderate hunger dropped 3.6 points from 16.4 percent, while severe hunger remained nearly unchanged at around 3.6 percent.

In Metro Manila, moderate hunger rose by 1.7 points to 16 percent, while severe hunger hardly moved from 6 percent to 5.7 percent.

In Balance Luzon, moderate hunger hardly changed from 13.9 percent to 13 percent, while severe hunger was slightly down from 3.1 percent to 2.3 percent.

The Visayas saw a 1.3-point decline in moderate hunger to 17 percent, but a notable 3.4-point increase in severe hunger to 4.7 percent.

Mindanao recorded significant improvements, with moderate hunger dropping 14.3 points to 7 percent and severe hunger falling 2.3 points to 2.7 percent.

The Second Quarter 2025 Social Weather Survey interviewed 1,200 adults aged 18 and above nationwide through face-to-face interviews, sampling 300 respondents each in Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.

The margin of error is ±3 percent for national estimates and ±6 percent for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.