Bill seeks to make feeding programs regular in public schools

MANILA, Philippines – Free meals for all public school students across the country. 

This is the vision of  Senate Bill No. 202 or the “Child Nutrition Act” filed by Senator Sonny Angara.

Angara joined the long list of lawmakers who support the institutionalization of child nutrition and school feeding programs in all public schools across the country to ease the hunger situation in the Philippines.

According to 2012-2013 figures of the Department of Education (DepEd), over half a million or 534,054 Filipino school children suffer from stunting due to undernourishment.

DepEd, through its School-Based Feeding programs, has been providing meals to undernourished kids since 2010. Vegetable gardens have also been set up in schools to provide healthy ingredients for the children’s hot meals every morning.

However, DepEd’s Health and Nutrition Center admitted that due to lack of funding, it could only feed more than 42,000 school children, only 7.54% of the identified severely malnourished pupils across the country.

The department’s limited budget contributes to the program’s small coverage for the feeding program. With the existing allocation for SBFP, DepEd spends P15 per child for food, and P1 per child for operational expenses. Multiplied by 120 feeding days, DepEd allocates about P1,920 ($43.97) per child.

This is what SB 202 aims to address. Under the proposed bill, a budgetary allocation shall be provided to institutionalize a school feeding program throughout the public elementary school network, and to provide incentives to private companies that will donate to the feeding program.

The bill also proposes the establishment of a school nutrition program to be initiated and expanded by the National Nutrition Council, the Department of Health, and the DepEd.

“Poor nutrition is among the top reasons for school dropouts. Since undernourished children are more susceptible to infection and disease, they absent themselves from school more frequently, resulting in poor performance and poor learning outcomes,” said Angara.

Senators Grace Poe and Loren Legarda have also filed similar bills which have been referred to the Senate committee on education chaired by Senator Pia Cayetano.

A recent study of the Department of Science and Technology’s Food and Nutrition Research Institute showed that 20% of Filipino children aged 0 to 6 years old are underweight for their age.

In order to meet its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for child nutrition, the country must reduce the prevalence of underweight children to 13.6% in 4 months. – Rappler.com 

P1 = $43.67