Congress has increased by 454.5 percent the budget of the two child feeding programs of the government, or from P7.48 billion to P10.89 billion, Deputy Speaker Ralph Recto said on Monday.
From P3.32 billion in 2022, funding for the Department of Education’s “School-Based Feeding Program” rose to P5.69 billion in this year’s national budget, an adjustment of P2.37 billion.
“DepEd will not only feed the mind, but the body as well. Nutrition impacts learning,” Recto said.
With the amount, DepEd said in its budget presentation to Congress that 1.7 million learners will benefit from the increase.
The DSWD, on the other hand, will be getting P5.2 billion for its “ Supplementary Feeding Program, up by P1.04 billion, from last year’s P4.16 billion.
The amount will be enough to feed 1,754,637 children age two to five in community and neighborhood sites.
“That is almost 200 million meals served, by DSWD alone,” Recto pointed out.
“In effect, VP (Vice President) Inday (Sara Duterte) and (DSWD) Secretary Rex (Gatchalian), in addition to what’s on their plates, will have to play the role of master chefs in this nationwide catering operation,” he said.
In addition to helping children lacking in food and nutrition, the two programs can be leveraged into helping local farmers and food producers, Recto said.
“With the community participating, then indeed it takes a village to feed a child,” he said.
But Recto said the school-feeding program should be “tweaked” so that it will not be an additional burden to teachers.
“The call of VP Sara for more support personnel in her agency is correct. There are limits to teacher multitasking – and that has been reached,” he said.
With their combined budget of P10.89 billion for child feeding, Recto said the DepEd and the DSWD will serve as “a safety net that will catch children who fall in between the hunger cracks widened by the gap in household income and food prices.”
In their December 2022 survey, pollster SWS revealed that hunger rate in the Philippines rose slightly to 11.8 percent from 11.3 percent in June 2022, affecting around three million Filipino families.
Before COVID-19 worsened it, the prevalence of under-nutrition in Filipino children below 5 years old was already at 29 percent.