Hunger among the country’s most food-insecure households is starting to decline, according to a government-led monitoring study of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s flagship food stamp initiative.

DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian said Tuesday that early results from the “Walang Gutom 2027” food stamp program — officially the Philippine Food Stamp Program — indicate improved food access among the poorest families.

“In line with the President’s directive to end hunger, we launched the Food Stamp Program in 2023. The first 300,000 members of this program are now eating properly, and hunger incidents are gradually decreasing among the food poor,” Gatchalian said in Filipino.

The study, commissioned by Globe Telecom and conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS), involved two face-to-face survey rounds — the first in October and the second in December 2024 — with nearly 4,000 respondents from pre-listed households identified as “food poor.”

SWS Vice President Jay Sandoval said the results show that nearly half of the program’s target participants still experienced involuntary hunger — defined as going without food despite wanting to eat — but added this was expected given their economic conditions.

“In Wave 1, 47.1 percent said they experienced involuntary hunger. In Wave 2, that number slightly dropped to 46.4 percent,” Sandoval said in Filipino. “That’s higher than the national average of 27.2 percent recorded in our March 2025 survey, but that’s because the DSWD study focuses on the poorest families.”

Gatchalian emphasized that while the food aid is temporary, it is coupled with livelihood interventions such as skills training and job placement in partnership with TESDA and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

“We ensure food is on the table now. But like all our programs, this has an exit mechanism,” Gatchalian said. “Once families are food secure and gain stable income, they can transition out of the program and into the productive workforce.”

TESDA is tasked with providing beneficiaries with vocational training, while DOLE is organizing exclusive job fairs for them.

DSWD also plans to integrate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s P20 rice initiative with the food stamp program. “We’ve already handed over the list of over 1,000 accredited food stamp retailers to the Department of Agriculture. These outlets will receive P20 rice supplies to boost what food credits can buy,” Gatchalian said.

Globe's chief sustainability and corporate communications officer, Yoly Crisanto, said their support stems from shared goals on hunger reduction. “We launched our Hapag Movement in 2022, and when DSWD approached us through the Management Association of the Philippines, we knew it was the right time to scale up efforts,” she said in Filipino.

Crisanto added that tracking data was critical for ensuring that private sector participation is based on results. “We needed to know: Is the intervention working? If not, we tweak it. But the intervention does work, and we’re very happy with the results,” she said in Filipino.

A third wave of the study is underway, and results are expected in the coming weeks. Gatchalian said adjustments to food voucher amounts will be guided by the findings.

By 2026, the DSWD aims to have 750,000 food-insecure families under the program, with 300,000 already reached in its first year and an additional 300,000 to be enrolled this year.

When asked if the program’s funding is sustainable, Gatchalian said, “Yes. NEDA has approved this, and it now has a line item in the national budget. The President has assured us there is enough funding for the next three years to bring hunger down to zero.”

Gatchalian said that the data from the Philippine Statistics Authority — including the Community-Based Monitoring System (CBMS) and Family Income and Expenditure Survey — will help determine when beneficiaries are ready to exit the program.