Photo courtesy: petrochem.com
THE budget for the DepEd’s “School-Based Feeding Program” will double from the current year’s P5.68 billion to P11.71 billion under next year’s P5.76 trillion national budget.
And if the proposed P4.1 billion for the DSWD’s “Supplementary Feeding Program” is added, total budget for the government’s child feeding program will reach P15.8 billion next year — a P5 billion jump from this year’s.
“The increase is unprecedented,” House Deputy Speaker Ralph Recto said.
“Never has the budget for child feeding been supersized to this big. On this, the government has put its money where its mouth is,” he said.
By Recto’s computation, using 2023 costing, the P15.8. billion will allow the two agencies to serve about 857 million meals to children with nutritional deficiency.
This year, DepEd will provide 1,678,704 students one meal a day for 120 days while DWSD will have 1,754,637 beneficiaries who will also receive one meal a day for 120 days.
He said costing for 2024 might still be adjusted to inflation, “but it will not change the fact that the two agencies will have in their hands a big catering operation next year”.
Recto explained that under the present “division of labor,” DepEd will cater to Kindergarten and Grades One to Six learners from indigent families who are wasted and stunted and because of this are in danger of dropping out.
For its part, the DSWD will serve similarly situated three-to-five year olds who are placed in day care and other child development centers.
Recto said the boost in child feeding resources is timely as the rise in food inflation which began during the pandemic “has resulted in recent disturbing statistics on child malnutrition.”
A government survey in 2021 found one in five schoolchildren ages 5 to 10 were underweight and stunted, and one in 14 “wasting.”
Among preschool children ages 3 to 5, one in four were underweight; one in four stunted; and one in 20 “wasting.”
Recto said a hike in DepEd’s budget for student feeding program should be accompanied by an increase in the budget for food preparation and handling facilities, cooking equipment and canteen.
Procuring more of these serves a dual purpose as these facilities can become teaching laboratories for senior high students taking culinary classes under the technical-vocational track, Recto explained.
“They can feed the body and feed the mind at the same time,” he said.
Recto said the almost P16 billion the two agencies will receive can help local farmers and food producers if schools will buy from them.
“In essence, it is a food purchase budget which can be spent locally, resulting in a virtuous cycle wherein food grown by the village will end up being consumed by their children,” Recto said.
“Kung tutuusin, mas malaki pa yang P16 billion sa palay buying funds ng NFA sa isang taon. Makakatulong na sa bata, may biyaya pa sa magsasaka,” he said.
