QUEZON City District V Representative PM Vargas wants to ease the worries of Filipinos about bringing food on their table daily. He aims at comprehensive legislative measures to bolster the nation’s agricultural sector and tackling hunger.
The proposed policies offer a multi-pronged approach to address perpetual challenges in food availability, value-chain production, and sustainable agricultural practices as means to promote a more resilient and equitable food system.
Together with the House Committee on Food Security as well as the Committee on Agriculture and Food, Vargas has been working on several legislative measures such as HB 3777 or “Livestock, Poultry and Dairy Development Competitive Act”; HB 4562 or the “Right to Adequate Food Framework Act”; HB 7898 otherwise known as the “Zero Food Waste Act” and a number of local bills for the District V of Quezon City lobbying for the institutionalization at the Barangay level of the Kadiwa ni Ani at Saka Program by the Department of Agriculture.
The initial versions of most of the bills were also lobbied by the legislator’s older brother and former Quezon City District V Representative Alfred Vargas during the 18th Congress.
While most of the measures are currently pending with the respective committees, Vargas remains hopeful that his efforts will be fast-tracked to help address the growing incidence of hunger in the Philippines.
In his proposed legislations, the Assistant Majority Leader presents policies to lower the incidence of hunger through initiatives to 1) improve the country’s food affordability, availability, quality, and safety; 2) institutionalize sustainable direct market linkages between accredited local farmers and fisherfolks; and 3) empower and capacitate livestock, poultry and dairy industries through a development roadmap.
Vargas is also an active member of Quezon City Task Force on Food Security, working hand in hand with Mayor Joy Belmonte on building communities with urban farming. “One pot of land can go a long way,” he believes.
The recent survey by OCTA Research Group for the last quarter of 2023 reveals that half of Filipinos remain concerned that they “do not have enough to eat every day”. More than those who are concerned “to have a secure and well-paying job” and “to finish school or to be able to provide schooling for children”. The study further exposes that involuntary hunger is highest in the areas of Visayas and Mindanao.
