496,704 families receive rice from government

MANILA, Philippines – At the height of the global financial crisis last year, the government had distributed 32.6 million kilograms of rice worth P652 million to around half a million families through President Arroyo’s Food for School Program (FSP), the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) said yesterday.

FSP sought to encourage school attendance by providing a daily ration of a kilogram of rice to poor families for at least 120 days a year as long as their children attended the state-run day care centers in their area.

NAPC Secretary Domingo Panganiban said rice was distributed in 13,764 daycare centers in 496 cities and municipalities nationwide. Some 496,704 families benefited from the program from 2008 up to the first half of 2009.

The program was under President Arroyo’s Accelerated Hunger Mitigation Program (AHMP), which seeks to meet the millennium development goals of alleviating poverty and hunger in the country.

NAPC Assistant Secretary Dolores de Quiros Castillo, AHMP point person, said the cities and municipalities placed under the program registered the highest levels of hunger in the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FLIES) of the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) in 2003.

Most of the beneficiaries were from the National Capital Region and 10 other provinces: Zamboanga Del Norte, Masbate, Maguindanao, Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Norte, Mountain Province, Lanao del Norte, Camarines Norte, Sarangani, and Zamboanga Sibugay.

A recent study conducted by the National Nutrition Council found that 49 of the country’s 81 provinces are “food insecure.” –Paolo Romero (The Philippine Star)