Record hunger in the Philippines as COVID-19 restrictions bite

Daniel Auminto lost his job and then his home when the coronavirus pandemic sent the Philippines into lockdown. | Daniel Auminto (L) with his wife and child.

Now he and his family live on the street, relying on food handouts to survive. | Daniel Auminto (L) and his wife look after their child sleeping under a bridge serving as their temporary shelter in Manila.

Charities are struggling to meet the ever-growing demand for food as millions of families go hungry across the country.

COVID-19 restrictions have crippled the economy and thrown many out of work. "I've never seen hunger at this level before," said Jomar Fleras, executive director of Rise Against Hunger in the Philippines, which works with more than 40 partners to feed the poor.

The number of people going hungry has reached a record high during the pandemic, according to pollster Social Weather Stations. | A street dweller sits as he queue up next to bags of fellow street dlwellers as they wait for free food distributed by Catholic religious order Society of the Divine Word (SVD) in Manila.

Nearly one-third of families - or 7.6 million households - did not have enough food to eat at least once in the previous three months, its September survey showed. | Street dwellers queue for free packed meals.

Among them were 2.2 million families experiencing "severe hunger" - the highest ever.

The numbers have been going up since May, two months after the country went into a severe lockdown - reversing a downward trend since 2012.

Virus restrictions have been eased in recent months to allow more businesses to operate as the government seeks to revive the devastated economy, which is expected to shrink up to 9.5 percent this year.

For the country's legions of poor, the pandemic is just another challenge in their lives - and not even the most serious.

Five days a week volunteers at a centre in Manila run by the Roman Catholic order Society of the Divine Word prepare around a thousand meals of chicken, vegetables and rice that are packed into boxes and given to the hungry.

Demand is constantly increasing, said Father Flavie Villanueva, who runs the programme. "We started doing this in April and began with 250 (people lining up). It increased to 400, and then 600, then 800. Three weeks ago it was 1,000," Villanueva said.

"The majority are still homeless but there's a good number who are with homes but are desperate because there are no jobs."

Hunger was already a major problem in the Philippines before the pandemic struck.

About 59 million people were "moderately or severely food insecure" between 2017 and 2019 - the highest in Southeast Asia - the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said in a report.