Higher prices to increase malnutrition cases — Sen. Grace Poe

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Grace Poe has warned that the spike in rice and food prices will worsen child undernutrition, which currently afflicts 18 million children under 11.

Unless government spends in “full and without delay” this year’s P8.8-billion budget for school and day care feeding, children would suffer, Poe said.

With food inflation hitting a record high of 8.5 percent last August, she said school and community kitchens are safety nets for children who are most vulnerable when food becomes more expensive.

“When food becomes scarce at home, then let us augment it with meals in schools and day care centers,” said Poe, main author of Republic Act 11037 or the National Feeding Program Law. 

For 2018, the Department of Social Welfare and Development has been given P3.428 billion to provide 1.746 million “underweight and under height” children five years old and below one meal a day for 120 days in more than 53,000 day care centers and community centers nationwide.

The Department of Education (DepEd), on the other hand, has a P5.3-billion allocation to serve one meal a day for 120 days to 2.5 million wasted and stunted public school students aged six to 11.

But during the hearing on the DepEd’s proposed budget for 2019 on Wednesday, officials said about 1.823 million learners were so far covered by the school-based feeding program.

From a funding point of view, oversight is required because of the big amount (P8.8 billion) involved, bigger than the National Food Authority’s budget for buying palay, the senator said.

“The per student cost is about P2,400 per annum. Thus, if you fail in implementing this program in one school, then it is as if you have denied that student P2,400 worth of food,” Poe said.

“By serving them meals, then we guarantee that they will learn something because the mind cannot absorb knowledge if the stomach is empty. We feed the mind with ideas and the body with nourishment. When hunger rises, school attendance dips,” she explained.

Meanwhile, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said President Duterte was right in “putting rice under one conductor” when he issued the long overdue order placing the NFA under the Department of Agriculture (DA).

“There should be no two separate orchestras, with a conductor each, when it comes to rice. So there’s only one movement, it should be one symphony under the baton of one conductor,” Recto said in a statement.