PH reaches record high status in hunger due to pandemic

The number of people in the verge of hunger has reached a record high status during the pandemic with nearly 7.6 million households not having enough food to eat at least once in the previous three months, according to the September pollster of Social Weather Stations.

"I've never seen hunger at this level before," said Jomar Fleras, executive director of Rise Against Hunger in the Philippines, who works with more than 40 partners to feed the poor.

He added that if you go out there, everybody will tell you that they're more afraid of dying from hunger than dying from COVID.

"They don't care about COVID anymore." Fleras said.

The nearly one-third families in the Philippines suffering from hunger was brought by the pandemic. 2.2 million of them are experiencing "severe hunger" which is the highest there has ever been.

The numbers have been going up since May, two months after the country went into lockdown.

Hunger was already a major problem in the Philippines before the pandemic struck with about 59 million people who were "moderately or severely food insecure" between 2017 and 2019.

This record was the highest in Southeast Asia according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization report.

Photo from GMA News