More People Hungry But Not Due to ‘Food Scarcity’
Gov’t data show wages insufficient to to meet food needs
In the midst of reports that the country needs to import further to address tight rice supply, government data shows that more Filipino families went hungry because they were unable to buy enough food.
Official government data revealed that 14.6% of Filipinos were not able to meet their basic subsistence or food needs, from 13.5% in 2003. This means that 12.2 million Filipinos were starving in 2006, up from 10.8 million in 2003.
“Many Filipinos are unable to meet their basic food needs because the daily minimum wage has not kept up with rising cost of living,” said IBON executive editor Rosario Bella Guzman. From 2001 to 2007, the real value of the daily minimum wage in Metro Manila has grown by less than one percent or from P246 in 2001 to P249 in 2006, even as food prices have increased by 21.5% over the same period.
Worse, the number of Filipinos who were unable to meet their basic food needs could be understated, given low food threshold figures. According to the official food threshold, a Filipino in 2006 needed only P27.47 a day (national average) to meet his or her food needs, or P137.35 for an average Filipino family with five members.
This was substantially lower than official estimates of food expenses in the NWPC living wage, which said an individual needed P33.52 in 2006 to meet his or her food needs or P167.60 for a family of five.
“There is food crisis, but only in so far as trade, especially of rice, is monopolized. More than the tight rice supply, however, the problem lies in the inability of an increasing number of Filipinos to earn enough to feed themselves and their families,” said Guzman.
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March 26th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Then stop having children! Less mouths to feed!
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:15 am
I agree with Chris, stop having so many children and maybe you can afford your fancy cars too!
March 18th, 2009 at 8:19 am
i disagree with both of you. they have so many children due to the life expectancy rate. it has gone down but not enough for the filipino to stop having children. their children will also, hopefully, support them financially in the future. These people are poor, poverty poor.
March 26th, 2009 at 8:25 am
well, population counts heavily, but it is not the only reason. Educational attainment is still low. Only 1 student out of 10 who enters grade 1 is able to reach college, and if you are going to pick random rural areas in the philippines, less than 30% of the people finish college (which happenned to be a primary requirement for a job)… implementation of livelihood programs are weak as well. only around half of the rural population were reached by such programs and more than half of them were not aware of such FREE and GOVERNMENT FUNDED programs… lesser opportunities indeed… another thing is on how food is prioritized… low educational attainment takes with it lesser prioritization on healthcare and knowledge on nutrition as well as food threshold… =’(
March 27th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I think we Pinoys should look back on how we sustained ourselves before and let history repeats itself. The trouble today is more and more farmlands are turning to subdivisions and other real estate projects without making the remaining lands more productive. Although IRRI is here in the country, its a shame that we are not able to keep up with the population needs.
So I call for all Pinoys to plant on their backyards for any type of food they can. If only half of Pinoys do this, it will ease up the requirements nationwide and help bring down importation.
Wastage is another factor. In my days, my lolo will scold me heavily if he saw a bit of rice on my plate. Now we are used to throwing heaps of rice to garbage without regard.
Let’s go back to basics and we will see our lives improving.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Insufficient food cannot be solved by government alone. Our growing population is the first one to blame given that are eating more than we are producing. Much of the land I used to plant rice when I was a teenager are developed into subdivisions and even one became an SM site in bulacan. And then people no longer plant food in their backyards and rely heavily on the market for the produce. Less production, we need to import and so this affects all of us.
Another culprit it wastage. When I was a kid, my lolo will scold me madly for a bit of rice left in my plate so I am used to sweeping my plate everytime. Now I see kids without regard for food and just leave it on their table to be trashed. There is so much wastage here in there and it adds up to our problems.