DSWD to tap excess rice to feed poor in day care centers

The Department of Social Welfare and Development is planning to utilize the country’s excess rice imports for its feeding program in day care centers operating mostly among poor communities in the country, DSWD Secretary Corazon “Dinky" Soliman said on Saturday. Soliman said the DSWD will use the National Food Authority (NFA)’s excess rice stocks to feed over 1.5 million children from 48,000 day care centers all over the country.
“We agreed on the basic framework na isa nga sa mga gagawin sa (that one of the uses for) NFA rice is to use it in DWSD’s supplemental feeding in day care centers," she told GMANews.TV in a phone interview after a meeting with representatives from the NFA and the Department of Agriculture in Malacañang on Saturday. The DSWD chief said the program, which will be called Lugawang Pinoy (Pinoy rice gruel) will address “undernourishment and malnutrition of these school children." She added that the department will determine over the weekend how much rice it will need for the feeding program, which is expected to last for six months in poor-community day care centers chosen by the DSWD. President Benigno Aquino III said in his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) last Monday that rice stocks were rotting in NFA warehouses during the past months because the previous administration overbought the staple food in 2007 to fill in the demand-supply gap. (See: Aquino: Rice rotted in NFA warehouses) Due to this, the NFA has created an audit team to investigate the system in place on how the agency buys and imports rice, while various groups have called on the agency to distribute the excess rice to poor families. (See: NFA audit team to probe reported rice anomalies) Food for work Soliman however said that the government decided not just to give away the excess rice to poor families to avoid the “implication of mendicancy." “This is taking away the mendicancy implication and the notion of patron-client relationship between the government and the poor. ‘Yung mga mahihirap naman nating kababayan, gusto rin nilang igalang at ipakita na kaya nila magtrabaho (Those among our people who are poor also want some respect, and to show that they are able to work)," she said. She added that the DSWD and other government agencies will meet again on Monday to discuss the mechanics of its proposed “Food for Work" program, which will allow poor Filipinos to do community service in exchange of rice. Those who will be chosen for the program will be tapped for the clean-up of Metro Manila and other ecotourism sites such as the Banaue Rice Terraces, according to Soliman. The DSWD secretary likewise said that the government agency will coordinate closely with the Department of Interior and Local Government to make sure that local government units will effectively implement the program among their respective constituencies. —JV, GMANews.TV