Poe said in a privilege speech that despite the reported economic growth, hunger was evident not just in official statistics but in the streets.
“This is a country where there is a fried or roasted chicken stand in every corner but the bestseller in the slums do not come in buckets but out of garbage cans – the pagpag double-fried chicken.”
The senator said that while food was available, not everyone had the money to buy it.
“Kung walang pang-extra rice, extra tulog na lang. Yes, sleep is the number one hunger coping mechanism in the land today. Hunger is a natural sleeping pill. Outside of slumber, others make do with ulam substitutes. The top five are soy sauce, the default viand of 23% of hungry Filipinos; followed,by bagoong, the replacement meal of 15%; tomato, salt and coffee,” Poe enumerated.
Consequently, according to the senator, bad nutrition would retard motor development, stunt cognitive skills and as a result, those who weigh less, score lower in tests and learn less than their classmates.
DepEd, DSWD programs
Poe said that allocations in the P2.6 trillion 2015 national budget did not adequately address the malnutrition problem.
According to Poe, In the next school year, the government through the Department of Education is expected to feed the country’s severely wasted children for an initial 120 school days with a P1.3-billion budget, while the Department of Social Welfare and Development, with P3.3 billion, is set to implement a supplementary feeding program for two million children in daycare.
“The budget per meal in the DWSD program is about 13 pesos and 60 centavos (P13.60). The DepEd program allocates P16 per child. Both are still below the Bilibid budget meal price tag of P50 a day. Surely we can raise the meal budget for our kids to national penitentiary standards,” she said.
The senator then outlined measures that would address hunger and malnutrition, including the passage of Senate Bill (SB) 79 which seeks to standardize a free lunch program for public school children; SB 2089 to promote corporate farming; SB 1282 to encourage Filipinos to venture into agriculture by giving incentives; and the National Land Use bill.
She also stressed the need to fund protection for vulnerable pregnant women.
Real agriculture program
She further said that the government should focus on a real agriculture program.
“On irrigation, for example, only 55%, or about 1.67 million hectares out of the potentially-irrigable area of 3 million hectares are serviced by irrigation. Yet for 2015, our measly target is to bring irrigation to a paltry 26,155 hectares for the first time. At this pace, it will take us half a century to develop our full irrigation potential,” she said.
“We can’t produce more food it we don’t invest more in agriculture. And the irony is that the supposed frontlines in the war against hunger are the first casualties of the enemy they are trying to defeat. 43 in every 100 fishermen are poor. Among farmers, the prevalence is 41 in every hundred,” the senator said.
She said for 2015, the government will be appropriating P88.8 billion for agriculture. “We should ensure that most of the funds will go to farmers, in time, in full, for the right project, at the right place, and the right price.” — DVM, GMA News
