(MANILA BULLETIN)

House Deputy Speaker and Batangas 6th district Rep. Ralph Recto hailed on Saturday, Aug. 5 the "unprecedented" P5-billion increase in the budget for the government’s child feeding program for the year 2024. 

In a statement, Recto noted that the budget for the Department of Education's (DepEd) “School-Based Feeding Program” will double from the current year’s P5.68 billion to P11.71 billion under next year’s P5.76-trillion national budget. 

And if the proposed P4.1 billion for the Department of Social Welfare and Development's (DSWD) “Supplementary Feeding Program” is added Recto said total budget for the government’s child feeding program will reach P15.8 billion next year--a P5-billion increase from 2023. 

“The increase is unprecedented. Never has the budget for child feeding been supersized to this big. On this, the government has put its money where its mouth is,” said the House leader. 

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) had just submitted the P5.768-trillion National Expenditure Program (NEP) to the House of Representatives. The House Committee on Appropriations will begin tackling the spending plan on a per agency basis starting Aug.10. 

By Recto’s computation, using 2023 costing, the P15.8. billion will allow the two agencies to serve about 857 million meals to children with nutritional deficiency. 

This year, DepEd will provide 1,678,704 students one meal a day for 120 days while DWSD will have 1,754,637 beneficiaries who will also receive one meal a day for 120 days. 

He said costing for 2024 might still be adjusted to inflation, “but it will not change the fact that the two agencies will have in their hands a big catering operation next year”. 

Recto explained that under the present “division of labor,” DepEd will cater to Kindergarten and Grades One to Six learners from indigent families who are wasted and stunted and because of this are in danger of dropping out. 

For its part, the DSWD will serve similarly situated three-to-five year olds who are placed in day care and other child development centers. 

Recto said the boost in child feeding resources is timely as the rise in food inflation which began during the pandemic “has resulted in recent disturbing statistics on child malnutrition".

A government survey in 2021 found one in five schoolchildren ages 5 to 10 were underweight and stunted, and one in 14 “wasting". 

Among preschool children ages 3 to 5, one in four were underweight; one in four stunted; and one in 20 “wasting".