The ‘Walang Gutom 2027: Food Stamp Program (FSP)’ is a flagship poverty reduction initiative of the government. It aims to reduce the incidence of voluntary hunger experienced by low-income households through monetary-based assistance and will be fully implemented starting this coming July.

This was announced by Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Undersecretary Edu Punay at the Saturday News Forum in Quezon City.

“This month po, magsisimula na iyong validation at ating registration ng 300,000 beneficiaries para sa July implementation ng program. Naka-hire na po this month ng 1,000 validators dito sa mga implementation sites. Twenty-one provinces in 10 regions po iyan na na-identify ng ating departamento bilang priority areas,” Usec Punay discussed.

He bared that the DSWD, being the lead agency in the implementation of the program, is currently completing the final preparations for its full implementation following what he described as its successful six-month pilot implementation in various parts of the country.

He noted that the pilot implementation, which started in December 2023 and is about to be completed this month, covered select areas in the National Capital Region (NCR), Bicol Region, Cagayan Valley, Caraga Region, and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

The program showed a significant positive impact on the lives of the beneficiaries based on indicators that the department had set, he added.

The DSWD is currently conducting a complete review and assessment of the results of the pilot implementation, which will then aid the agency in determining the next set of beneficiaries and in further enhancing the program.

He explained that under the FSP, the DSWD will provide food augmentation to the bottom one million Filipino households who belong to the food-poor criteria as defined by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and the DSWD Listahanan 3.

The beneficiaries will be given monetary-based assistance in the form of food credits which will be loaded onto their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards. These food credits can be used to purchase select food items such as rice, vegetables, meat, and other essential goods from Kadiwa stalls as well as eligible partner supermarkets and merchant stores.

📷 Saturday News Forum