President Rodrigo Duterte has signed into law Republic Act 11037 or the Masustansyang Pagkain para sa Batang Pilipino Act (Nutritious Foods for Filipino Children Act) last June 20, which institutionalizes a national feeding program for children in the country.
Announced yesterday by Malacañang, the feeding program will benefit children attending public daycare aged three to five years old, as well as students attending kindergarten up to Grade 6.
Kids will be given one fortified meal for no less than 120 days in a year. The law describes a fortified meal as a “meal with deliberately increased content of essential micronutrients.”
A milk feeding program will also be put into place. Fresh milk and milk-based foods will be included in the fortified meals prepared by government agencies.
The government will also provide supplements including iodized salt and conduct vaccination and deworming among children.
A national database will be put in place to identify individuals, groups, and localities which are strongly affected by malnutrition.
All donations to the program will be exempted from donors’ tax.
The Department of Education and the Department of Social Welfare and Development will be responsible for preparing a five-year plan to implement the program.
The law aims to combat hunger, as many of the Philippines’ children continue to suffer from malnutrition.
A Social Weather Stations survey released earlier this year said that in the last quarter of 2017, around 3.6 million families couldn’t afford to eat at least once in three months.
Malnutrition has also affected the physical development of children. Stunted growth is common among poor Filipino children who suffer from hunger. The non-government organization Save the Children estimates that 33.4 percent of children under five are stunted.
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