10K undernourished public school children benefit from Pagcor’s feeding program

MANILA, Philippines - Almost 10,000 undernourished and severely wasted school children from 186 public schools nationwide benefitted from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR)’s feeding program at the close of school year 2012-2013.

PAGCOR Chairman and CEO Cristino Naguiat Jr. said the state-owned gaming firm allocated P40 million for its feeding program last school year to help address the needs of undernourished public school students. “ For the coming school year we plan to increase this to about P45 million so that we can have more beneficiaries,” he added.

According to Naguiat, the PAGCOR feeding program’s student-beneficiaries from public school in Metro Manila and the province got an allowance of P40 and P30 meal per day, respectively.

“PAGCOR’s feeding program is conducted every semester for five months through our different Casino Filipino branches nationwide. We provide free nutritious lunch to public school children who have been classified as malnourished,” the PAGCOR Chief added.

The PAGCOR Feeding Program was carried out by the state-owned agency in response to the pressing need to improve the health and nutrition of school children from the poorest public schools.

Based on a report released in August 2012 by the Department of Education (DepEd), a total of 562,262 pupils in kindergarten and elementary levels enrolled in public schools have been classified as “severely wasted” or undernourished.

The DepEd’s Health and Nutrition (HNC) reported that it could only feed 42,372 schoolchildren or 7.54 percent of the identified severely malnourished pupils in 1,010 public elementary schools from 28 provinces.

Naguiat said the PAGCOR feeding program is the agency’s way of helping our government address the problem on malnutrition. “Our public school children need all the nutrition they can get to help them learn better and absorb all the teachings in school.”