Marcos OKs pilot of food stamp program

MANILA, Philippines — President Marcos has approved the pilot implementation of the food stamp program, which will be expanded to cover pregnant women, single parents and lactating mothers to address the problem of stunting in the country.

Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Rex Gatchalian said the pilot program – to last for six months – would allow the government to see aspects of the program that need to be improved, enhanced or discontinued.

“The President approved the run of the pilot, which is fully funded through grants – grants from the ADB (Asian Development Bank), JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) and the French Development Agency. So, that will be $3 million all in all,” Gatchalian said at a press briefing at Malacañang.

“We are doing the pilot so that we don’t end up with wasteful spending. We want to make sure that when we do expand the program on its regular run, even if the President already approved, we want to learn from the pilot and we want to start right,” he added.

Gatchalian previously said the pilot test of the program would be conducted from July to December.

According to Gatchalian, Marcos wants the food stamp program to also cover pregnant women and lactating mothers to address stunting and as part of the implementation of the First 1,000 Days Law, which seeks to provide critical care interventions for the first 1,000 days of a child’s life. Single parents will also benefit from the program, he added.

“The marching order of the President is to fight stunting and hunger,” the social welfare chief said.

Under the Walang Gutom 2027: Food Stamp Program, electronic benefit transfer cards loaded with food credits worth P3,000 would be given to beneficiaries per month, which they could use to buy select food items from DSWD-registered or accredited local retailers.

Representatives of households who will sign up for the program should show proof that they have work before they can qualify.

About 3,000 households are expected to benefit from the pilot test while 300,000 others will get assistance during its initial run next year.

The number of beneficiaries will rise until the government reaches its target of one million household beneficiaries. The pilot areas for the food stamp program are located in Metro Manila, Northern Luzon, MIMAROPA, Caraga and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said stunting affects 21.6 percent of persons aged 0 to 23 months and 28.7 percent of children under five years old.

“The effects of malnutrition and stunting, you don’t recover it like a wound that heals; it’s permanent. That’s why if you want a human capital or citizens who are working and they are intelligent, they will pass school, you really need to feed them well during their early life years because the growth and development they need are there,” Herbosa said at the same press briefing.

Herbosa said Marcos wants a “more cohesive” manner of addressing hunger and poverty in the country.

“The President wanted a more cohesive approach (to) this problem of hunger and addressing the poor. And he was asking, ‘I don’t want duplication… because there might be overlaps in the feeding programs,’” the health chief said.

“We’re trying to now put them all together in one unified life stages approach. So that is what I proposed to the President. I think the way to approach it is a life stage and we start it with pregnant women,” he added.