HUNGER among the Walang Gutom Program (WGP) beneficiaries continues to drop, proving the effectiveness of the program, a privately commissioned survey showed.
Social Weather Stations (SWS) fellow Dr. Roehlano Briones, in a briefing in Malacanang, said the survey results showed that the self-rated hunger among WGP beneficiaries dropped to 41.5 percent in March this year, from 44.6 percent in December 2024 and 48.7 percent in October 2024.
“The rate of improvement among beneficiaries was 6 percentage points higher than for non-beneficiaries. Meaning, the changes can be confidently attributed to the program itself rather than other socioeconomic trends,” Briones said.
He said among the other indicators used in tracking the results were the food poverty based on self-rated food threshold, severe food insecurity, and food diversity score.
“On the whole, evidence is consistently pointing to the positive impact of scaling up the “Walang Gutom” program to the food-poor population of the country,” he added.
Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Rex Gatchalian, in the same briefing, said one notable result of the survey is the improvement in hunger rating among beneficiaries in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM)-Plus cluster, where hunger incidence fell by 17.4 percentage points.
Gatchalian said the government is determined to sustain the program and end hunger in the country.
He assured the public that the government has enough funds to continue the implementation of the program.
He said at present, 300,000 food-poor families benefit from the program, which will be raised to 600,000 by the end of the year and to 750,000 by the first half of 2026.
The WGP provides each beneficiary-family with P3,000 in monthly food credits through Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards, which can be used to buy nutritious food at 1,017 accredited retail partners, including 639 women-led enterprises.
The Walang Gutom Program was piloted in July 2023.
A June 25-29 SWS survey, meanwhile, showed that 35 percent of Filipino adults said the quality of their lives was better than 12 months ago (gainers), almost unchanged from the 34 percent in April, while 23 percent said it had gotten worse, down from 29 percent (losers). Forty-two percent (unchanged) said it was the same.
This resulted in a net gainers’ score of +12 (percent of Gainers minus percent of Losers), up from +5.
SWS classified the latest net gainers rating as very high.
SWS said the net gainers’ score is highest in the Visayas at +22 (up from 0), followed by Mindanao at +16 (up from -3), Metro Manila at +10 (up from -1), and the rest of Luzon at +6 (down from +12).
