MANILA, Philippines?The administration of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo launched a Food-for-School Program (FSP) in early November 2004 as part of its response to a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showing that more Filipinos were going hungry.

According to the survey released in October that year, one of every seven household heads (15.1 percent) said they had nothing to eat at least once in the past three months. This incidence of hunger nationwide was at the time the second-highest since SWS began monitoring hunger in 1998.

Under the FSP, each pupil was given one kilogram of rice ?fortified with nutrients? to take home each school day. The program initially targeted public schools in Metro Manila, Cavite, Bulacan and Rizal, which showed the highest dropout rates in Grades 1 and 2 and the highest level of malnutrition among its students.

In February 2005, the program yielded both positive and disturbing results. Corazon Soliman, who was also for a time the Social Welfare Secretary in the Arroyo administration, said ?anecdotal evidence? showed there were ?100-percent attendance and visible weight gain? among the students.

However, because of the promise of getting rice, ?some pupils who were actually sick were being forced to go to school,? Soliman said.

In one school, street ?bullies? harassed students heading home to get the children?s daily kilo of rice, she said.

Poor distribution

The Arroyo administration continued to bankroll the program, extending the rice doles to other provinces.

In January 2008, then Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said the malnutrition level among public grade schoolers nationwide dropped to 17 percent from 20 percent in 2006. He credited the FSP for the improvement.

But months later, in June, a Commission on Audit (COA) report said the FSP was actually proving to be more of a burden than a relief to parents and teachers due to poor distribution.

The COA said P36.9 million worth of rice (or 1.8 million kg) was delivered by the National Food Authority to drop-off points ?selected at will? by delivery personnel, contrary to an agreement between the NFA and Department of Education that the food agency should ensure the rice was delivered directly to the schools.

As a result, students, parents and school officials had to spend personal money to transport the rice doles from the drop-off points to their schools. Much of the staple the beneficiaries received was also of ?poor quality.?

In July this year, Soliman, reappointed social welfare secretary by President Aquino, said the new administration was eyeing the abolition of the program following the discovery that not all of the food supplies were reaching the students. Eliza Victoria, Inquirer Research

Source: Inquirer Archives