President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. has approved the pilot implementation of the food stamp program that will also include single parents, pregnant, and lactating women.

President Marcos presides over a sectoral meeting to discuss the food stamp program in Malacañang on June 13, 2023. (Photo courtesy of PPA Pool/Yummie Dingding)

Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Rex Gatchalian announced that it is "all green lights go" for the six-month pilot testing of the program which aims to provide food credits to the bottom one million households in the country.

"The President approved the run of the pilot which is fully funded through grants, grants from the ADB (Asian Development Bank), JICA, and French Development Agency. That will be $3 million all in all," Gatchalian said in a Palace briefing on Tuesday, June 13.

"There's a provision to expand it, ADB is still working on other trust funds so that we can extend the pilot but other than that it's all green lights go na for the pilot which will take place shortly," he added.

According to the DSWD chief, the President ordered the inclusion of single parents and pregnant and lactating women as beneficiaries of the food stamp program.

"The President also wants to bring in pregnant, lactating mothers kasi (because) we have to start looking at stunting in this country and the first 1000 days program is very important," he said.

Marcos, he added, wants ongoing programs that address malnutrition and stunting be synchronized.

According to Malacañang press briefer Daphne Paez, the President, during the sectoral meeting, tasked the DSWD in coordination with the Department of Health (DOH) to look into the nutritional value of the food that will be given to the program beneficiaries.

During the pilot testing of the program, Gatchalian said they will see the nuances—what needs to be improved, enhanced, and discontinued.

"It will run for six months. We are doing the pilot so that we don't end up with wasteful spending. We want to make sure that when we expand the program on its regular run, even if the President already approved it, we want to learn from the pilot," he said.

The pilot testing will begin in the second half of the year.

The five pilot sites are from different geopolitical characteristics – one in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), what used to be a former conflict area; one in geographically isolated regions or provinces; one in urban poor settings; one will be calamity-stricken areas; and one will be a rural poor area.

The food stamp program or the “Walang Gutom 2027” aims to provide electronic benefit transfers that will be loaded with food credits amounting to P3,000 to purchase a select list of food commodities from DSWD accredited local retailers.

It intends to target the bottom one million households from Listahan 3 who belong to the food poor criteria as defined by the Philippine Statistics Authority.