A Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) official yesterday said the government remains on track in its efforts to bring down the poverty incidence to a single digit and attributed the latest increase in hunger and poverty incidence to several factors, such as inflation and the changing climate patterns.
DSWD Assistant Secretary and spokeswoman Irene Dumlao, in a briefing in Malacanang, said while the latest results of a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed that some 14.4 million or 52 percent of Filipino families rated themselves poor and around 27.2 percent said they experienced involuntary hunger in the last three months, it is just an individual perception that covered a short period of time.
She said the agency would use it as reference in the continuing commitment of the agency to innovate, further improve and even expand its relevant programs and services such as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), the Supplementary Livelihood Program, the Walang Gutom Program (WGP) and Walang Gutom Kitchen, among others.
“We believe that the latest SWS results are an affirmation of the work that the Department is doing as we focus on intensifying our programs to respond to the needs of the Filipino public. Ang DSWD ay committed na mag-contribute para makamit natin ‘yung goal ni President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr para sa single-digit poverty incidence by 2028 (We believe that the latest SWS results is an affirmation of the work that the Department is doing as we focus on intensifying our programs to respond to the needs of the Filipino public. The DSWD is committed to contributing to the efforts to realize the goal of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr to reduce the poverty incidence to a single-digit by 2028),” she said.
Dumlao said the DSWD has been working with other government agencies and even the private sector in the improvement and expansion of some of its current programs to better assist the poor and vulnerable sectors.
She said the 4Ps, for instance, as the country’s national poverty alleviation program, has expanded to conducting job fairs for current and graduating families of the program to enable them to support their families and sustain their self-sufficiency by giving them access to employment opportunities.
She said at least nine 4Ps job fairs had been held nationwide where 400 4Ps beneficiaries were hired on the spot and more than 3,000 others were employed.
Apart from the employment opportunities under the 4Ps job fairs, the SLP also provides graduating 4Ps families with startup capital to help them sustain self-sufficiency after graduating and prevent them from returning to poverty.
More than 700,000 families have already graduated from 4Ps.
The local government units from which the 4Ps who graduated belonged also provide aid and help monitor them to ensure that they do not return to poverty.
Dumlao said another program is the Walang Gutom Program (WGP), formerly the Food Stamp Program and the Walang Gutom Kitchen, which are both aimed at addressing hunger.
WGP started in 2023 with more than 1,000 families who received a monthly food voucher worth P3,000, provided that it is used for healthy food and a member of the family gets a job while covered by the program.
The program currently benefits 300,000 families and aims to cover one million families by 2027.
Dumlao said there is an ongoing assessment of the effectiveness of the program and a study to determine if the monthly food voucher is enough, along with its frequency of release.
She said DSWD is also looking at expanding and opening a Walang Gutom Kitchen (WGK), which is currently housed in Pasay City, in Northern Metro Manila, the Visayas and Mindanao to assist and provide hot meals for people who mostly live in the streets.
“We are expecting na ma-finalize po iyan itong buwan ng Abril, kung ano pa ‘yong karagdagang mga rekomendasyon ‘yung ating ikokonsider sa scale up ng Walang Gutom Kitchen (We are expecting to finalize the plan this April, and consider the additional recommendations to scale up the Walang Gutom Kitchen),” she said.
The WGK, apart from providing nutritious food, helps reduce food wastage as donated surplus food from hotels, restaurants, and organizations is turned into hot meals for individuals experiencing hunger.
DAVAO CITY’S TAKE
In Davao City, mayoralty candidate Karlo Nograles proposed a free breakfast program for the city’s public schools to address food insecurity among students and eventually improve learning outcomes.
Nograles, who previously served as chair of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Zero Hunger, also called for urgent action to address hunger and malnutrition in the city.
He raised alarm over the SWS results that showed 27.3 percent of families in Mindanao experienced involuntary hunger in the past three months.
“The hunger rate in Mindanao is now as high as the national average. That means more than one in four families are going hungry—and we are seeing it here in Davao. This is not just a statistic. This is a daily reality for too many of our fellow Dabawenyos,” he said.
Nograles said that hunger and poor nutrition must be treated as urgent local priorities, as he emphasized that “nutrition is linked to everything—education, productivity, health.”
