Grace Poe to poll bets: Prioritize fight vs malnutrition, child stunting

Sen. Grace Poe. Photo from Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau.

MANILA, Philippines — As the May elections draw near, Sen. Grace Poe has urged the country’s next leaders to prioritize child-related issues such as malnutrition.

Poe, whose two six-year terms end on June 30, authored the “Masustansyang Pagkain Para sa Batang Pilipino Act” which institutionalized the School-Based Feeding Program (SBFP) and Supplementary Feeding Program (SFP).

The SBFP aims to address undernutrition among learners by providing hot meals or nutritional food products as well as fresh milk to wasted and severely wasted learners from Kindergarten to Grade 6.

The SFP, on the other hand, targets undernourished children in day care centers.

With a P11.7-billion budget this year,  the SBFP is currently providing 2,207,769 learners with hot meals and nutritional food products and 2,206,268 learners with fresh milk.

This allocation is P65.7 million higher than the 2024 budget, according to Poe, who heads the Senate committee on finance.

READ: Higher funding pushed for kids’ free meals

“We’re not starting from zero. The programs and the budget for child nutrition are in place, but we need champions for this advocacy to ensure its continuity,” Poe said in a press release.

“We hope we elect officials who believe that the economic future of our country hinges on our children,” she added.

It was not indicated in the press release how much was allocated for the SFP this year, but it said the program benefited 9,558,636 children in local government unit-run Child Development Centers and Supervised Neighborhood Play from 2020-2024.

For School Year 2023-2024 alone, Poe said the SFP served 1,846,902 children.

The number of severely underweight and underweight children was reduced from 170,135 to 42,447 equivalent to a 75% improvement rate, she added.

Although these figures about the kids’ improved nutrition are encouraging, Poe said there should be no let-up in the programs.

“We are gratified that in our years in the Senate, we are able to pass the feeding program laws, and correspondingly created a budget space for their implementation,” she said.

“Where our children’s nutrition is concerned, a diet policy does not work. For our children to reach their full potential and be productive, we need to provide them with the very basic need, which is food,” the senator added.