The Department of Social Welfare and Development in Bicol (DSWD-5) will include more household beneficiaries for the Walang Gutom Food Stamp Program (FSP) for 2025.
In an interview on Wednesday, DSWD-Bicol Regional Director Norman Laurio said from the 30,500 beneficiaries for 2024, they are upscaling it to more than 70,000 families for 2025.
“For this year, the 30,500 families were from only two provinces, Camarines Sur and Sorsogon. For 2025, more than 70,000 families will be coming from the six provinces already. This is part of the scale-up of the food stamp program. We are very thankful for the additional families that will be supported by the program,” he said.
On Tuesday in Camarines Sur, DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian witnessed the beneficiaries’ redemption of their PHP3,000 worth of food stamps.
“Our goal is already in this name, ‘Wala ng Gutom’. We have conditions for the beneficiaries that they need to meet so that they are not removed from the program. We want to succeed in this program. This program is done year after year; the one on the line this year is PHP2 billion, so it would scale up as we grow bigger,” he said.
Gatchalian said the program will give households with better access to nutritious food through food credit assistance using an electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card pre-loaded with food credits worth PHP3,000 per month.
The food credits can be used to buy various nutritious food items from the three food groups consisting of 50 percent carbohydrates (Go food group), 30 percent protein (Grow), and 20 percent fiber (Glow) from DSWD-accredited stores.
Gatchalian said the beneficiaries of the program were selected by the agency using Listahanan 2019, or the data base.
“We (DSWD) choose the beneficiary; what we use is the Listahanan, not a local list, but of course, the local chief executives know their people; that’s why we are asking their help in validating the effectiveness of our list when the Community-Based Monitoring System (CBMS) of the Philippine Statistics Authority comes out, that we will use,” he said.
In a separate interview, Minalabac Mayor Christopher Lizardo thanked the Marcos administration for the food stamp program.
“This is a big thing for us residents; it’s a big help. The majority of our residents are farmers, so while waiting for the harvest, there’s something that will provide their needs while they do some construction. In our coastal villages, it’s monsoon season, and it’s difficult for our fishermen, so now the government program will support them,” he said.
One of the beneficiaries, Elias Garcia, 72, of Malitbog, Minalabac, said the PHP3,000 worth of food would sustain the needs of his family for three weeks.
“Thank you because we have received such help; our food is nutritious. Thank you for meeting our daily needs easier,” he said in Filipino.
Camarines Sur Governor Vincenzo Renato Luigi Reyes Villafuerte thanked DSWD for including the 35 towns and two cities in the province as beneficiaries of the program.
“Thank you for the partnership and support given to our province. This program is very beneficial to our people. For all the mayors here, as your governor, I ask for your full support for this program,” he said.
Gatchalian, together with other DSWD officials, was in Camarines Sur for an information caravan for other flagship programs of the agency such as the Tara, Basa, and Pag-Abot programs. (PNA)
