The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has vowed to continue to fight food insecurity with its innovative programs.
“Secretary Rex Gatchalian has always been firm and clear that he will prioritize fighting hunger as the head of the DSWD. In fact, he reiterated it in his recent interview that this is one of the dreams of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. to end hunger in the country,” DSWD Assistant Secretary Irene Dumlao, who is also the DSWD spokesperson, said.
Dumlao was reacting to the National Nutrition Council’s (NNC) report that one out of three households in the country experience food insecurity and malnutrition also remains as one of the causes of low intelligence quotient and stunted growth.
“One of the programs implemented by the Department to address hunger and food insecurity is the Walang Gutom 2027: Food Stamp Program (FSP), which has been made a priority program by the Office of the President,” Dumlao said.
The FSP is a flagship program of the Marcos administration that aims to help address food insecurity of poor Filipino households by providing food augmentation to the bottom 1 million households who are classified as belonging to the food-poor criteria as defined by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), including pregnant and nursing mothers.
The FSP provides beneficiaries with access to monetary-based assistance and nutrition education to teach them how to prepare healthy and safe meals for the family. The FSP also invites beneficiaries, whose names were listed in the DSWD’s Listahanan 3, to become productive citizens through skills training and participation in government-organized job fairs.
