Food stamp program tested in Tondo

MANILA, Philippines — Fifty indigent families from Tondo, Manila will be the initial beneficiaries of the pilot implementation of the food stamp program which will be rolled out on July 18, according to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

At a media forum on July 15, Gatchalian said the DSWD is ready to kick off the program with the 50 families from Tondo who are considered “food poor” by the Philippine Statistics Authority.

“In the past five months, we really spent a lot of time to develop this program ….And now we are ready to roll it out. The pilot implementation is for 3,000 but we will be having 50 families for the initial run,” he noted.

The goal is to enroll a total of one million families who will each receive a tap card containing P3,000 worth of food credits every month.

Under the plan, the “Walang Gutom 2027” program will be expanded gradually until it covers the 3,000 families by March next year.

The pilot implementation will be evaluated, and after six months, it will be scaled up to include 300,000 families, and another 300,000 the following year until it reaches the one million family-beneficiaries.

The one million families will come from all over the country, especially those in areas that are hard-to-reach, conflict areas and poorest communities.

“This is to fulfill the promise of the dream of President Marcos which, if you remember, he made during the campaign – that no Filipino should go hungry. So, this is one of the ways to achieve that dream by operationalizing it with the food stamp program” he added.

But Gatchalian reiterated that the program is not a dole out, as beneficiaries will be required to attend nutritional classes to instill in them essential health habits.

“We want to empower the food poor. We want them to have behavioral change because what’s happening now is, while their resources are limited, they would use it to buy (unnecessary things) like liquor,” he said.

The tap cards will be used by beneficiaries to procure food at Kadiwa stores and at any authorized grocery.