Funding main challenge in alleviating hunger among poor —DSWD
The Marcos administration’s food stamp program will require an annual funding of about P40 billion, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said Saturday.
DSWD Usec. Edu Punay said at least 1 million poor families will be covered by the program.
The Asian Development Bank has provided a $3-million grant for the technical assistance of the food stamp’s pilot program covering about 300,000 families starting next month until December, Punay said.
The nationwide “Walang Gutom 2027: Food Stamp Program” aims to give targeted households P3,000 food credit per month to address involuntary hunger in the country.
“We still have discussion with the economic team on how to source this (funding) because of the limited resources that we have,” Punay said.
An estimated 3 million Filipino families experienced hunger at least once in the last three months of 2022 – or leading into the Christmas holidays — a survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) released in January showed.
The national survey of 1,200 adults found that 11.8 percent of Filipino families experienced involuntary hunger, which means being hungry and not having anything to eat, in the fourth quarter of last year.
The number of families facing hunger from October to December was highest in Mindanao at 12.7 percent, followed by the Visayas at 12 percent, Metro Manila at 11.7 percent, and Balance Luzon at 11.3 percent.
“It has been highest in Mindanao in 38 out of 100 surveys since July 1998,” the SWS noted.