THE Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) yesterday vowed to sustain its Walang Gutom Program (WGP) to eliminate hunger by the time President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. steps down from office in 2028.
DSWD Assistant Secretary and spokeswoman Irne Dumlao yesterday said the agency welcomed the latest Social Weather Stations’ (SWS’) self-rated hunger rating that dropped to 16.1 percent in June from 20 percent in April, saying it is proof that the WGP has been effective.
“Patuloy ang ating kampanya para wakasan ang kagutuman!…Ang pagbaba sa insidente ng involuntary hunger ay patunay sa pagiging epektibo ng Walang Gutom Program (WGP) ng DSWD na ayon sa direktiba at pangarap ng Pangulong Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. na wala nang magugutom na Pilipino bago matapos ang kanyang termino sa 2028 (The campaign against hunger continues!…the lower incidents of involuntary hunger is proof of the effectiveness of the Walang Gutom Program (WGP) of DSWD which is in accordance to the directive and dream of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. that no Filipino will be hungry before he ends his term in 2028),” Dumlao said in a message to the media.
She said the WGP is part of the programs of the government, not just to address hunger but also to ensure that affordable and nutritious food is accessible to every food-poor Filipino family.
The WGP provides food-poor families with P3,000 food credit every month, which they can use to buy rice and other nutritious food in Kadiwa Centers and other accredited market stalls and stores.
Around 300,000 families currently benefit from the programs but the DSWD intends to increase the number of beneficiaries by another 300,000 within the year and by another 150,000 by 2026.
The WGP originally aimed to benefit one million food-poor families by 2027 but the target number was reduced to 750,00 after the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that the number of food-poor families went down to 750,000 in 2023.
The June SWS survey showed that self-rated hunger went down to 16.1 percent or 3.9 percentage points below the 20 percent recorded in April.
SWS said the 16.1 percent hunger rate is the sum of the 12.8 percent who experienced moderate hunger and 3.3 percent who experienced severe hunger.
The polling firm defines moderate hunger as those who experienced hunger only once or a few times in the last three months while severe hunger refers to those who experienced hunger often or always.
Self-rated hunger was highest in Metro Manila and the Visayas at 21.7 percent each (from 20.3 percent and 19. 7 percent, respectively), followed by Luzon at 15.3 percent (from 17 percent) and Mindanao at 9.7 percent (down from 26.3 percent).
