Many Filipinos still hungry, malnourished

Rina Jimenez-David, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Asia News Network, Manila

One-third of all Filipinos say they are not getting enough food, a story in yesterday's papers reported, based on the findings of a nationwide survey conducted by Pulse Asia from March 3-16.

The private polling body said the 30 percent hunger figure is even an improvement over findings in October last year, when 43 percent of respondents said they were not getting enough food. This year's survey also found that 29 percent of Filipinos said that "having enough to eat everyday (was) an urgent personal concern" to them. So, aside from the large proportion of Filipinos who already go hungry each day, almost the same number say they worry if they will be able to eat and where and how to get the food they would eat.

If, as social observers note, we Filipinos "move on our stomachs," food serving as not just nutrient and fuel but also as social lubricant and determinant of social status, then this is a matter of grave national concern, indeed.

The picture grows even more alarming when we take into consideration the findings of other research bodies. In the article Why are Filipinos Hungry? published in the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism's "i Report," former undersecretary of agriculture and of trade and industry Ernesto Ordoqez cites five-year findings of the Social Weather Stations (SWS), another respected private poll firm, that shows a steady escalation of Filipinos' hunger from 2000 to 2004, "save for a fluke of a year that was 2003 when only 5.1 percent of the respondents told SWS they had gone hungry." But in 2000, the number of respondents who said they had gone hungry was at 8.8 percent, by 2004 the number was at 15.1 percent.

The trend is borne out by the findings of the National Statistics Office (NSO). In 2000, the NSO determined that each Filipino needed at least P21 worth of food daily in order to survive. The NSO census of that year found that 21.2 percent of all Filipinos were not reaching even that meager food threshold. Since the government conducts a census only every five years, it's not yet known for sure whether that figure has increased or declined. But, given the recent spate of price hikes from gasoline to power to consumer goods, it may be safe to assume that even more Filipinos are going hungry today.

Ordoqez cites "three possible reasons for the growing hunger among Filipinos."

These are: Food production may not be keeping up with our growing population, "there simply is not enough food"; by the time the food produced at the farm level gets to the consumer, food prices are too high, which means many simply cannot afford the food they need; and third, some cannot purchase the food they need because they have too little income or what income they have for food has largely been eaten up by inflation.

From 1990 to 1999, says Ordoqez, the Philippine population grew at 2.3 percent while agriculture growth averaged only 2.1 percent. "In other words, food production didn't keep up with the growing population." But from 2000 to 2004, notes Ordoqez, agricultural production racked up impressive growth, from 3.6 percent in 2000 to an expected 5 percent in 2004. Why are Filipinos still going hungry?

Ordoqez cites Mario Capanzana, head of the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI), who reminds that "hunger is not determined by food production alone." Food consumption, he adds, "is also determined by food availability and affordability." By the time agriculture products reach consumers at the retail level, prices would have increased from anywhere between P8 and P56 from the "farmgate" price. But Capanzana notes that the big disparity between farmgate and retail prices has not changed all that much in the last few years, so it cannot be the major cause for the increase in hunger among Filipinos.

Certainly a major factor, says Ordoqez, is the "decrease in purchasing power and with it, the capacity of consumers to buy food." Directly related to this, he adds, is the rate of unemployment and underemployment, "as well as both overall inflation and food inflation."

Making matters worse is "inequitable growth." According to an Asian Development Bank study, from 1985-1997, when the poverty incidence dropped from 44 percent to 33 percent, the poorest 20 percent of the population improved their income by only 0.5 percent for every one-percent growth in average income. "Clearly, we should also work on more equitable distribution of income," says Ordoqez.

In the meantime, families that can still afford to buy food, though among the poor this "quota" has been reduced to just one meal a day, are resorting to the adoption of what marketing guru Ned Roberto calls "surrogate 'ulam' (viand)" to get by.

Compared to our neighbors (and these include Cambodia and Laos), the Philippines is reducing malnutrition at a much slower pace. While malnutrition and undernutrition reduce the working capacity of adolescents and adults, they affect young children the most and permanently, retarding their growth, making them more prone to illness, and even affecting their mental capacity.

With their purchasing power curtailed, writes Vinia Datinguinoo in the same issue of "i Report," many Filipino families have turned to carbohydrate-heavy diets, the most popular being instant noodles, and salty accompaniments to boiled rice, such as soy sauce, bagoong (fish paste) or just salt.

Such coping strategies, say experts at the FNRI, have helped Filipinos maintain their needed caloric levels, but a diet rich in salt and carbohydrates likewise presents the risk of health complications down the road, particularly on such vital organs as the heart and kidneys.

Not only are many Filipinos going hungry, those that manage to eat are, by their choice of food, eating themselves to an early grave.