Now covers solo parents, pregnant women
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is including single parents, pregnant women, and lactating mothers among the beneficiaries of the government’s food stamp program to address the problem of malnourished and stunted children born in the country.
Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Rexlon “Rex” Gatchalian said this on Tuesday during a Palace press briefing as the President approved the pilot run and the implementation of the food stamp program.
“The President also wants to bring in pregnant, lactating mothers because we have to start looking at stunting in this country and the first 1,000 days program (for infants) is very important,” Gatchalian said.
“The marching order of the President is to fight stunting and hunger, joint efforts of other programs of the government,” he added, referring to the order to effectively implement the First 1,000 Days Law or Republic Act 11148.
The government also wants to avoid wasteful spending and ensure that when the program is expanded for its regular run, the government is doing it correctly, according to the DSWD chief.
“The President approved the run of the pilot, which is fully funded through grants… from the ADB (Asian Development Bank), JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency), and the French Development Agency. So that will be $3 million (about P168 million) all in all,” Gatchalian said.
“There is a provision to expand it. ADB is still working on other trust funds so that we could expand the pilot. But other than that, it’s all green lights go for the pilot, which will take place shortly,” he added.
For his part, Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said the food in this program should be of nutritional value.
“It actually jives, the poorest one million… to be able to give them food stamps so that they will have nutritious food,” Herbosa said.
“The President wanted a more cohesive approach (for) this problem of hunger and addressing the poor…We’re trying to now put them all together in one unified ‘life stages’ approach that starts from pregnancy,” he added.
Based on figures from the Food and Nutrition Research Institute, stunting rates for ages 0 to 23 months old is 21.6 percent or one in five children while for children under five years old, the stunting rate is 28.7 percent.
For malnutrition rate, Herbosa said the children in daycare facilities, which is handled and supervised by DepEd, it is pegged at 20 percent.
“So one in five kids, I need to feed properly with correct nutrients,” the DOH Secretary said.
The DSWD said the project aims to assist targeted households suffering from involuntary hunger.
Earlier, the agency explained that it would provide electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards that will be loaded with food credits amounting to P3,000 per month to purchase a select list of food commodities from DSWD-registered or accredited local retailers.
Through the pilot testing, Gatchalian said the DSWD and other involved agencies will see its nuances and determine what needs to be improved and enhanced, and what items must be discontinued.
The food stamp program or the “Walang Gutom 2027” aims to provide electronic benefit transfers that will be loaded with food credits amounting to P3,000 to purchase a select list of food commodities from DSWD-accredited local retailers.
It intends to target the bottom one million households from Listahanan 3 who belong to the food-poor criteria as defined by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
The DSWD has identified five pilot sites coming from different geopolitical characteristics: an area in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), what used to be a former conflict area; one in geographically isolated regions or provinces; one in urban poor settings; one in calamity-stricken areas; and one in a rural poor area.