We’re only hungry

No, we’re not starving to death, we’re only hungry.

The Philippines is again prominent on the hunger map. We landed fifth (or among the top 10) in Gallup International’s survey results on the world’s hungriest. Released on World Food Day last month, the results didn’t hit the news until recently.

It is said that very few people die of starvation. According to Bread for the World (Brot fur die Welt or BW), a Church-related development agency that has worldwide reach including in the Philippines, only a small percentage of hunger deaths are caused by starvation. Most hunger-related deaths are the result of chronic undernutrition, which weakens the body's ability to ward off diseases prevalent in poor communities. Most hungry people have some food, but not enough food or enough of the right kinds of food.

And so when people actually starve to death—because no food is available—the cause is primarily political, not environment-related. In North Korea, BW notes, untold millions starved because of the government's unwillingness to give up on failed economic policies. In Sudan, millions are threatened with starvation because of an ongoing military conflict that devastated the country's ability to produce food and because the government restricts the flow of emergency relief.


In its survey, Gallup asked over 58,000 people from 55 countries the question: “Have there been times in the last 12 months when you and/or your family have not had enough to eat?” “Have not had enough to eat” means a person needed more but there was no more. That translates into hunger caused by absence of food because there was no money for food, there was no way to produce food, there wasn’t food available or coming from any source, food supply was being blocked, etc.

Four in 10 Filipinos (40%) told the pollsters that in the past year they “often or sometimes” lacked food. (The survey sample in the Philippines was 1,000.) The “top 10” hungriest are Cameroon (55%), Pakistan (53%), Nigeria (48%), Peru (42%), Philippines (40%), Bolivia (35%), Guatemala (35%), Ghana (32%), Russia (23%) and Mexico (23%).

I looked at the Gallup website for more details and I could see that Africa is clearly the place where food was most lacking. Three countries in Africa, four in Latin America, two in Asia and one from Eastern/Central Europe showed up on top of the hunger poll.

Here are some hunger facts from BW: Of the 6.6 billion people of this world, 923 million are hungry. Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. According to the most recent Food and Agriculture Organization estimates, the number of hungry people in the world has increased by 75 million. Rising food prices have hit Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia/Pacific the hardest. In these two regions the number of hungry people has increased by 24 million and 41 million respectively. The latest FAO report warned that "meeting the internationally agreed hunger-reduction goals in the few years remaining to 2015 is becoming an enormous challenge."

Hunger is often discussed in statistical terms or seen in the global or national context that we sometimes forget how it really feels on the ground. Only the very poor know what hunger is in the most physical sense—as an intense need for food, as weakening of the body because of the lack of it. In the hierarchy of needs of human beings, food is on top. Physical hunger/thirst is the first need that must be addressed.

When hunger is discussed in relation to poverty, it is often used interchangeably with malnutrition, starvation and famine. But these are four different stages and situations. Surely the Philippines is not experiencing massive starvation and famine but prolonged hunger can eventually take its toll. On the young especially.

Experts could discuss hunger till they get hungry but only the truly needy hungry know what it is like. The non-hungry discuss the politics and economics of hunger. The spiritually inclined speak about prayer as a hunger. The health buff watches out for that pang, that wicked craving.

The hunger of the poor is different. It is accompanied by anxiety. It is not simply feeling something in the stomach that’s gone empty or humihilab ang tiyan. Indeed there is some acidic turbulence in a stomach that’s gone empty for long periods but real hunger is more than hilab.

When the poor are constantly feeling physiological hunger in the absence or lack of food, it is not just the glucose level that is sending distress signals, their bodies are also screaming for the wide array of nutrients they have been deprived of for long periods.

And so today I am attending two roundtable forums/workshops on poverty/hunger-related issues. The one organized by the Asia-Europe People’s Forum will tackle the question “What is to be done to protect the people in the midst of crisis: Firming up of proposals”. It will tackle “what’s wrong and what’s right” about subsidies (rice, cash, agricultural production) and pump-priming through infrastructure spending. It will also tackle “employment on demand” and how it could happen, generating public revenues for social protection program, safeguarding the life savings of Filipinos, etc.

The other gathering is organized by the Philippine Social Enterprise Network (a network of 37 NGOs), Initiative for Dialogue and Empowerment through Alternative Legal Services and SharePeople, a Netherlands-based group. The theme “Boosting an Economy Under Pressure”, will deal with how social enterprises could soften the blow on the most vulnerable sectors.

May all this brainstorming bear fruit.