DepEd's school-based feeding program gets hiked P5.79B for 2020

More underfed school children were expected to benefit from the Department of Education's (DepEd) School-Based Feeding Program (SBFP) after its budget was hiked to P5.97 billion under the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for next year.

The is P1 billion or 20 percent higher than the current year's appropriation for the program, said Anakalusugan party-list Representative Michael Defensor.

“We are all for the bigger allocation, so that the program can target and cover a greater number of underfed school children,” he said in a statement.

The SBFP is one of the three national feeding programs for undernourished children under RA 11037 or the Masustansyang Pagkain Para sa Batang Pilipino Act, the others being the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Supplemental Feeding Program for Children in Public Day Care Centers and the Department of Agriculture’s Milk Feeding Program.

Under the SBFP, undernourished children from kindergarten to Grade 6 are given deworming tablets and fed at least one fortified meal and micronutrient doses in pills, capsules or syrups for at least 120 days in a school year.

School children who are covered under the program are those mostly "wasted and severely wasted," or those who are considered too skinny for their age.

“Right now, many school children from poverty-stricken families, even here in Metro Manila, continue to suffer from short-term hunger,” Defensor said.

“There’s no question the program has helped to improve the nutritional and overall health condition of children, apart from encouraging more of them to stay in school,” he added.

A June 2019 survey of the Social Weather Stations found that around 2.5 million Filipino families experienced either “moderate” or “severe” involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months.

Defensor believed that the SBFP would reduce starvation among school children from indigent households.

"Our sense is, the DepEd is getting better in executing the SBFP, especially after the adoption a new set of guidelines two years ago,” Defensor said. — Erwin Colcol/DVM, GMA News