Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey shows Filipino families who experienced involuntary hunger rose to 20% towards the end of April 2025.

SWS defines involuntary hunger as “being hungry and not having anything to eat – at least once in the past three months.

The 20% hunger rate during the latest survey period conducted from April 23 to 28, 2025, is the sum of 16.4% who experienced “moderate hunger” and 3.6% who experienced “severe hunger.

The latest hunger rate was slightly higher than the 19.1% seen in the previous April 11 to 15, 2025 survey, following an 8.1-point decline from 27.2% in March 2025.

Moderate hunger refers to those who experienced hunger “only once” or “a few times” in the last three months. 

While severe hunger refers to those who experienced it “often” or “always” in the previous three months.

SWS also found that hunger was highest in Mindanao at 26.3% of families, followed by Metro Manila at 20.3%, the Visayas at 19.7%, and Balance Luzon (or areas in Luzon outside Metro Manila) at 17% 

Compared to the April 11 to 15, 2025 survey, the incidence of hunger fell by 5.7 points from 26% in Metro Manila, and by 3.5 points from 20.5% in Balance Luzon.

However, it rose by 9.0 points from 17.3% in Mindanao, and by 5.4 points from 14.3% in the Visayas.

Meanwhile, the same survey found that 50% of Filipino families consider themselves mahirap or poor, 8% of them at the borderline between poor and not poor, and 42% hindi mahirap or not poor.

In December 2024, SWS reported that 63% or some 17.4 million Filipino families considered themselves poor—the highest rate in 21 years.

Self-rated food poverty, which is based on the type or quality of food eaten by families, stood at 41% for those who see themselves as food-poor during the latest survey period.

Those who saw themselves at the food borderline between food-poor and not food-poor was at 7%, while respondents who deemed themselves as not food-poor registered at 51%.

According to SWS, hunger is highest among the food-poor.

Total hunger—”moderate” plus “severe” respondents—increased slightly to 25.9% compared to 24.4% earlier in April. These figures still followed a steep decline from the 35.6% in March 2025.

The rating for total hunger among non-poor—”not poor” plus borderline poor—rose to 14.1% from 13.4%. These also marked a sharp drop from the 18.3% recorded last March.

SWS did not field questions on self-rated food poverty from January 2025 to April 11-15, 2025. However, it was not mentioned in the SWS report why this was so.

The first quarter 2025 Social Weather Survey was conducted through face-to-face interviews of 1,500 adults, 18-year-olds and above, nationwide: 600 in Balance Luzon (or areas in Luzon outside Metro Manila), and 300 each in Metro Manila, Visayas, and Mindanao. 

The sampling error margins are ±3% for national percentages, ±4% in Balance Luzon, and ±6% each for Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao.

The area estimates were weighted by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) medium-population projections for 2025 to obtain the national estimates, according to SWS.

The exact phrasing of the survey questions in Filipino were as follows:

On hunger: “Nitong nakaraang tatlong buwan, nangyari po ba kahit minsan na ang inyong pamilya ay nakaranas ng gutom at wala kayong makain?” (OO, HINDI) 

(In the last three months, did it happen even once that your family experienced hunger and did not have anything to eat? (YES, NO))

If experienced hunger: “Nangyari po ba ‘yan ng MINSAN LAMANG, MGA ILANG BESES, MADALAS, o PALAGI?”