DSWD: Ending hunger will be Marcos’ legacy

Ending hunger through the Walang Gutom Program (WGP) will be one of the legacies of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Rex Gatchalian said Saturday.

“So this is going to be a bold statement, and I think it will be President Marcos’ legacy to be the country’s president that says he is going to end hunger by the time he steps out of office in 2028,” Gatchalian said.

He added, the Marcos administration is taking a strong stance against undernutrition, malnutrition, and hunger as a whole.

“No administration has been bold to say that they want to end hunger. It’s a basic sustainable development goal that up to now hasn’t been addressed by this country,” the DSWD chief said.

The DSWD’s WGP, institutionalized as the government’s flagship anti-hunger program through Executive Order No. 44, was pilot tested in 2023 with some 2,000 household-beneficiaries across the country.

Gatchalian said the result of the pilot shows the effectiveness of the program but also gives policy recommendations such as improving the meal proportions and the per capita cost.

“These are things that we are already incorporating as we scale up,” he added.

Last year, the WGP reached 300,000 households which is 100 percent of its target beneficiaries in 2024.

“So we’ve identified the first 300,000 that will be part of the 1 million beneficiaries of this program. This year, we want to scale it up again all the way to 600,000,” Gatchalian said.

The WGP aims to bring down the incidence of involuntary hunger experienced by Filipinos from low-income households.

The WGP also promotes social and behavioral change among food-poor families by teaching them how to prepare nutritious, delicious, and affordable meals.