The Office of the Vice President will soon deploy three food trucks in several schools nationwide to arrest malnutrition and hunger problems among students.
OVP Local Affairs and Special Programs Division chief Norman Baloro said the “Kalusugan Food Trucks” will follow a 120-day feeding program menu.
The program will be implemented in collaboration with the Department of Education and the Department of Health, through the National Nutrition Council.
Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio is also the concurrent Education Secretary.
Baloro said the three trucks “were lent to the OVP under a usufruct agreement until 2028.”
“We target nine schools in a year, three schools each in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, considering that 120 days is prescribed by the National Nutrition Council,” he said.
The food trucks will also be used as mobile kitchens during calamities, he added.
Earlier, the private sector and business groups have called on the administration to solve children’s undernutrition, which they said had led to students’ underwhelming performance in schools.
“Child malnutrition caused by poverty leads to poor learning. Poor learning leads to poverty, and poverty leads to malnutrition. It’s a vicious cycle that affects at least 26 million Filipinos. We need to stop it now,” said Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) president Chito Salazar.
A World Bank report last year showed there have been little improvements in the prevalence of undernutrition in the Philippines in the past three decades, with one in three children younger than five years old suffering from stunting.