THE Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is looking at expanding its “Walang Gutom” Kitchen (WGK) program to northern Metro Manila within the year and in other parts of the country by next year to serve more people and help address involuntary hunger.
Social Welfare Assistant Secretary and spokeswoman Irene Dumlao, in an interview yesterday with radio dzRH, said the DSWD only has one Walang Gutom Kitchen located in Pasay City. It is a community service hub that provides hot and nutritious meals to homeless individuals or people who live on the streets.
“The food we serve here came from our partners. These are their food surplus that we serve our countrymen who are experiencing hunger,” Dumlao said.
She said the goal of the DSWD is to set up a WGK in the northern part of Metro Manila this year and in the provinces of Leyte, Samar and the regions of Bicol and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARRM) by next year.
She said the agency hopes to finalize plans for the expansion of the program within the year.
The WGK was launched in December 2024 and in its first month served an initial 23,245 meals to more than 18,000 individuals, mostly families and children, living in the streets.
DSWD partnered with private companies for the first year of the implementation of the WGK, which include Ronald McDonald’s House of Charities, Jollibee Food Corporation, Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines Inc., Nestle Philippines Inc., Century Pacific Food Inc., Monde Nissin Corporation, Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSB), Unilever, and the Philippine Hotel Owners Association.
The WGK is an offshoot of the Walang Gutom Program (WGP) that provides P3,000 worth of food vouchers monthly to poor families in the country. The voucher is exchanged for nutritious food items in accredited market or grocery hubs, including the Kadiwa ng Pangulo.
In exchange for the voucher, a member of the family must find work to be able to support their family in the future.
The goal of the WGP is to assist one million food-poor families by 2027 and eventually help them out of poverty.
It is implemented in areas with a high incidence of involuntary hunger.
An April 10-16 OCTA Research survey showed that the number of Filipino families that consider themselves as poor dropped to 42 percent or around 11.1 million in the first quarter of 2025 from 50 percent or 13.2 million families in November 2024 or the last quarter of last year while the self-rated food poor went down to 35 percent or around 9.2 million families from 49 percent or 12.9 million families during the same period.
A separate Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey in April showed that some 14.4 million or 52 percent of Filipino families rated themselves as poor and around 27.2 percent said they experienced involuntary hunger in the first quarter of the year.
