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Friday, March 29, 2024

Typhoon victims assured of $74m food aid

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The Philippines will receive $74 million in food and humanitarian assistance from the World Food Program to help feed millions of poor Filipinos,  particularly those affected by the recent calamities.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said that the WFP  Executive Board unanimously approved the Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation for the Philippines during the First Regular Executive Board Session on February 10 at the WFP Headquarters in Rome.

The food grant is good for  three years and cover 408,000 beneficiaries, the WFP said.

The program reinforces the long-standing partnership between WFP and the Philippines in addressing the food security and nutrition and humanitarian assistance requirements of those most in need, such as the recent typhoons Haiyan and Hagupit that struck the country, it said.

Meanwhile, the Kilusang Mayo Uno welcomed the findings of the United Nations’ special rapporteur Hilal Elver on the right to food, that there is widespread hunger in the country despite the Aquino government’s claim of economic development.

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At the same time, the labor group said the passage of the Right to Adequate Food Bill—which will create a Commission on the Right to Adequate Food, set targets in hunger and poverty reduction, and recognize food as “a legal entitlement” —is limited.

“The UN special rapporteur on the right to food is right: hunger continues to be widespread in the country. We hope she would help debunk the Aquino government’s lie that there is inclusive growth in the Philippines,” said Elmer “Bong” Labog, KMU chairperson.

The labor leader said that legal guarantees for the right to food, would amount to nothing without the creation of decent jobs through the implementation of genuine land reform and national industrialization.

Labog said that an immediate cause of the widespread hunger and poverty in the country is the government’s failure to generate decent employment for Filipinos, having relied on foreign investors to create jobs in the country.

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