The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has begun enrolling 300,000 additional households into the “Walang Gutom Program” (WGP), completing the government’s target of 600,000 beneficiaries for 2025.

Undersecretary Edu Punay of the DSWD’s Innovation and Program Development Group (IPDG) said the program, a flagship anti-poverty initiative of President Marcos Jr., will now cover 12 regions and more provinces nationwide.

“Since last year, we have been able to serve 300,000 household beneficiaries in 10 regions and 22 provinces. The President announced in his State of the Nation Address that we would expand this. Today, we have already onboarded an additional 300,000 beneficiaries,” Punay said in Filipino on Monday, Nov. 17.

“Before the end of the year, we will serve 600,000 households under this program,” he added.

The program’s expansion is backed by funds from an Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan under the Reducing Food Insecurity and Undernutrition with Electronic Vouchers (REFUEL) Project.

Punay said national budget allocations of P1.9 billion were only sufficient for 50,000 beneficiaries, prompting negotiations with the ADB to scale up coverage.

The REFUEL project, implemented in partnership with the ADB, Agence Française de Développement, and the OPEC Fund for International Development, aims to assist 750,000 households in 22 provinces.

Participating families receive P3,000 in monthly food credits, which can be used to buy nutritious items from DSWD-accredited stores.

Punay also noted the program has already shown positive results.

A Social Weather Stations survey found the incidence of hunger among WGP beneficiaries fell from 48.7 percent in October 2024 to 41 percent in March 2025.

“This is a program that provides food assistance through food provision and food credits to food-poor families across the country, who sometimes eat only once or twice a day,” Punay said.