Food for School Is Not the Answer to Child Malnutrition – NGO, Peasant Leader

The campaign officer of a non-government organization promoting children’s rights and welfare says that the government’s Food for School program, launched recently, does not address the problem of malnutrition affecting grade-schoolers. Hazel Dizon, campaign and information officer of Salinlahi, instead bats for the abandonment of the country’s trade liberalization policy.

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat

A children’s rights and welfare advocate says that the Food for School program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is not adequate to address the malnutrition problem affecting grade-schoolers aged six and seven.

“Government itself admits that this is good only for a certain period,” said Hazel Dizon, campaign and information officer of the Salinlahi (Alliance for Children’s Concerns), in an interview with Bulatlat. “What happens after that?”

Dizon’s reaction jibes with an analysis of the program by Danilo Ramos, chairman of the cause-oriented Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or Philippine Peasant Movement. “That is a mere consuelo de bobo (literally, face-saving measure to make up for stupidity) that will not address the issue of people’s food security,” Ramos said in a brief phone interview.

“The Food for School program is nothing but a political gimmick to earn popularity points for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,” he added. Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo’s popularity rating has plunged consistently in recent opinion surveys since the last elections in May.

But Ramos is not convinced: he sees something fishy in the program. “This could also be an excuse to increase rice importation, as well as to bloat the budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA) under Gloria’s control,” he said.

KMP has been a known critic of the trade liberalization policy imposed by the World Trade Organization (WTO) – saying that competition from imported agricultural products, heavily subsidized by their governments unlike in the Philippines, has displaced many rice farmers and caused the country to be a net rice importer from being one of Asia’s leading rice exporters.

Dizon said that if the government is serious about addressing the country’s malnutrition and hunger problems, it should – among other things – veer away from the food trade liberalization policy imposed by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Food for School

Bulatlat contacted the DSWD intending to get the government agency’s side on the issue. Secretary Dinky Soliman, however, was not available for interview, Bulatlat was told. Undersecretary Celia Yangco, to whom this reporter was referred, has not responded to requests for an interview.

But initial news reports on the program, launched Nov. 8 at the Cainta Elementary School in Rizal province (about one hour northeast of Manila), cited Soliman as saying that it is part of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s overall thrust to alleviate hunger and poverty in the country. From statements released by the DSWD, the program will use funds from the agency's budget and the President's Social Fund.

The social welfare secretary also admitted that the program was prompted by the third quarter survey of the Social Weather Station (SWS), which indicates that 15 percent of all Filipino families had nothing to eat for at least one whole day during this year’s second quarter.

Education Secretary Florencio Abad meanwhile said the program will focus on feeding underweight children.

Under the program, at least 50,000 first- and second-graders from 105 schools in Metro Manila, Cavite (a province south of Metro Manila), Bulacan and Rizal (provinces both north of Metro Manila) will receive a kilo of rice for each day that they go to school, Soliman was cited as saying at the program’s launching. These included, she told reporters, 8,338 in Manila, 8,925 in Caloocan City, 8,362 in Quezon City, 7,828 in Rizal, 7,367 in Cavite and 8,338 pupils in Bulacan, in schools identified by the DSWD.

“The criteria (for schools) that were considered include high poverty incidence, high malnutrition rates, and high drop-out rates for grades one and two,” the DSWD secretary explained.

Underheight, underweight

Based on data from the government Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI), there was a decrease in the prevalence of underweight and underheight in children from six to 10 years old from 1989-96, but since 1996 these problems have been on a steady uptrend.

In 1989, 32.5 percent of Filipino children aged six-10 were underweight, compared to 28.3 in 1996. From 1996 to 2001, however, the number rose to 32.9 percent.

Also in 1989, 44.8 percent of Filipino children aged six-10 were underheight compared to 39.1 percent in 1996. However, from 1996 to 2001, the number went up to 41.1 percent.

Solutions

“They may have good intentions…and we can be thankful for that,” Dizon said. “But at the same time, this is no long-term solution.”

What are the solutions called for by Salinlahi?

“At the most immediate,” Dizon said, “the children’s parents should be given jobs and livelihood. If we trace the causes of the children’s hunger – or malnutrition, because the children may be able to eat regularly but their food may not be substantially nutritious – the solution to that is for their parents to have jobs with wages enough to buy proper food.”

Second, she said, “Because whenever the prices of prime commodities like oil and water increase, the prices of basic commodities follow, there should be price freezes. The increases in prices of commodities should be stopped, especially since the wages of working people do not increase. For a long time workers’ wages have not been able to keep up with rising costs of commodities. Much more now that prices are already flying.”

In the larger context, Dizon said, the problem of widespread malnutrition among children is linked to the trade liberalization policy imposed by the WTO.

“Our farmers are dictated upon regarding what to plant,” she said. She added that land which could be planted with staple crops like rice and corn are converted into subdivisions or golf courses, or planted with cash crops.

The food program for schoolchildren started way back in the 1950s with assistance from the U.S. government, using packed milk powder at the height of the Huk rebellion and social unrest. Imelda Marcos, first lady of the late President Ferdinand Marcos during martial in the 1970s, revived the program with her “Operasyon Timbang” that used wet market weighing scales for children. Mrs. Marcos also distributed “nutribun” – said to be a high-protein bread – and promoted Green Revolution, particularly the planting of the vegetable plant, malunggay. The Marcoses hyped that their nutrition program would eradicate malnutrition.

All food programs had been criticized however as making no impact on reducing poverty and malnutrition in the country. Bulatlat  

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