Malacanang on Friday said the latest Social Weather Station survey on self-rated hunger is "essentially subjective."

This is the reaction of presidential spokesman Harry Roque on SWS latest survey that showed 11.8 percent or an estimated 2.7 milllion families are experiencing involuntary hunger.

"Self-rated hunger, like poverty, is by definition, essentially subjective sentiment/perception at the time of the interview," Roque said.

"As such, data tend to be mercurial and to be taken with more than a grain of salt. We believe it is better to consider data in a series over a period, i.e., 6 months /one year, and should be compared with official objective data," he added.

According to SWS, the latest figure is 2.3 percentage points above the 9.5 percent result last June.

SWS said the measure of hunger refers to involuntary suffering of the respondent who answer a survey question that specifies hunger due to lack of food to eat.

Roque assured the public the Duterte administration is working to ensure that basic human services, such as food, are available.

"These include additional pension to seniors, additional rice subsidy to conditional cash household beneficiaries, affordable easy-access microfinancing system, free irrigation to increase food productivity, among others," he said.

He added, "bringing comfortable life for all Filipinos remains our overarching goal."

SWS also said moderate and severe hunger rose to 11.8 percent and 2.1 percent respectively.

Hunger among both self-rated poor and self-rated non-poor also rise to 16.7 percent and 7.4 percent. Hunger in all areas of the country except the Mindanao also rose.

The survey was conducted from September 23-27, using face-to-face interviews of 1,500 adults nationwide. Ella Dionisio/DMS