PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos led the launch of the P74-billion Reducing Food Insecurity and Undernutrition with Electronic Vouchers (REFUEL) Project, which will raise the number of household beneficiaries of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) food aid program to 750,000 by next year.
The project is being funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Agence Française de Développement, and the OPEC Fund to scale up the Walang Gutom Program (WGP) of DSWD.
Created through Executive Order No. 44 in 2023, the WGP provides monthly P3,000 electronic food credits to low-income households.
DSWD was initially targeting 300,000 household beneficiaries for WGP this year, which is expected to be increased by 150,000 next year.
Under the REFUEL project, DSWD will include an additional 300,000 beneficiaries for WGP in 2026. By 2027, the number of WGP beneficiaries is expected to reach 1 million.
‘By next year, more than 600,000 [households] will become beneficiaries of the Walang Gutom Program,’ he said in Filipino at the launch of REFUEL at San Andres Sports Complex in Manila on Thursday.
The decision to raise the number of program beneficiaries comes after DSWD observed the country’s hunger rate slowed to 41.5 percent in March from the 48.7 percent in October, a situation Marcos attributed to the nationwide rollout of the WGP.
‘I think, after this year, we will see it go down even further. Slowly, my dream, as well as the dream of all Filipinos, that no family should go hungry here, is coming true,’ the chief executive said.
With good nutrition, Marcos said the children of the beneficiary households will not suffer from stunting and have better academic performance.
The World Health Organization defines stunting as the impaired growth and development of children due to malnutrition.
‘One of the main reasons children can’t study well is because they are sick. It’s very simple. So.They are sick because the food they eat is [of[ poor [quality],’ Marcos said.
‘So we make sure that our students are given enough food so that they can study well, train well, and be successful in their work,’ he added.