DSWD boosts fight vs food insecurity with innovative programs

MANILA – The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) will continue to fight food insecurity with innovative programs, Assistant Secretary and spokesperson Irene Dumlao said on Friday.

Dumlao issued the reaction on the National Nutrition Council's (NNC) report that one out of three households in the country experiences food insecurity and malnutrition.

"Secretary Rex Gatchalian has always been firm and clear that he will prioritize fighting hunger as the head of the DSWD. In fact, he reiterated it in his recent interview that this is one of the dreams of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. – to end hunger in the country," Dumlao said in a statement.

She noted that part of the NNC report shows that food insecurity and malnutrition are also among the causes of low intelligence quotient and stunted growth among poor Filipino households.

"One of the programs implemented by the Department to address hunger and food insecurity is the Walang Gutom 2027: Food Stamp Program (FSP), which has been made a priority program by the Office of the President," Dumlao said.

The flagship FSP program provides food augmentation to the bottom one million households who are classified as belonging to the food-poor criteria as defined by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), including pregnant and nursing mothers.

The FSP provides beneficiaries with access to monetary-based assistance and nutrition education to teach them how to prepare healthy and safe meals for the family.

"By teaching FSP beneficiaries to start consuming delicious types of food that are affordable and nutritious, the agency, in turn, helps them to form healthy eating habits that may lead to decreasing the malnutrition rate in the country," Dumlao said.

The FSP invites beneficiaries, whose names were listed in the DSWD's Listahanan (List) 3, to become productive citizens through skills training and participation in government-organized job fairs.

Recently, the DSWD announced the expansion of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program to improve the nutrition and health of mothers and children during their first 1,000 days.

Another means being applied by the DSWD is the community-driven approach through nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive programs such as the Philippine Multisectoral Nutrition Project (PMNP).

The PMNP, under the Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services, has already completed 2,055 community sub-projects on early childhood care and development and water, sanitation, and hygiene, which benefitted more than 560,000.

For the same purpose, the DSWD also implements the Supplementary Feeding Program, which aims to improve and maintain the nutritional status of children enrolled in child development centers or in supervised neighborhood play by providing augmentation support for feeding and intensifying nutrition and health education for 120 days.

In the provinces under the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslin Mindanao, the DSWD has a program called Bangsamoro Umpungan sa Nutrisyon (BangUn), a program to ensure that all children in Mindanao have access to food, medical care and education.

"As emphasized by Secretary Gatchalian, ending hunger is not easy and it needs a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to address this. The DSWD is fulfilling its mandate in this shared goal of ending food insecurity and lack of food among our kababayan (compatriots)," she said. (PNA)