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A FORMER
official of the National Economic and Development
Authority (Neda) has criticized the government’s hunger
mitigation plan for lack of specific targets and clear
financial and investment projects to sustain the
program—in other words a shotgun approach.
Prof.
Ofelia Templo, former assistant director general of Neda,
said a mitigation policymaking is not effective,
embracing as it does broad goals without specific target
groups.
She said
the hunger mitigation program of President Arroyo being
implemented in 10 identified provinces with the highest
rate of hunger incidence has been missing 1.29 million
poor families because the target population have not
been categorized either belonging to “food poor”
families or those with low “subsistence incidence.”
“There
are deep-seated causes of poverty incidence and the
current hunger-mitigation and poverty-reduction programs
are mere knee-jerk reaction to a SWS survey about
Filipinos experiencing hunger,” said Templo during the
forum on Hunger Mitigation and Poverty Reduction at the
Ateneo Professional Schools in Makati on Wednesday.
“You
can’t ensure a child’s hunger has been mitigated by
providing one kilo of rice to every child in public
schools everyday,” added Templo.
The
forum was organized by the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization and the Economic, Social, and
Cultural Rights-Asia.
Templo
said there are 2.2 million families in the 10 target
provinces with subsistence incidence as against 3.5
million food poor families in the same provinces. Only
Zamboanga del Norte and
Masbate’s food-poor families have been included in the anti-hunger
program.
The rest
of the provinces with a total of 1.29 million
“food-poor” families are not provided for, including
those in the conflict-wracked provinces in Mindanao.
Poverty
is defined in two categories: families that have no
ability to access nutritional requirements or simply
those who suffer hunger frequently—the food poor. The
other are those who have very low subsistence because
their minimum annual income fall short of the poverty
threshold at which level they could satisfy food
requirements and other basic needs.
Government has introduced a P1-billion hunger mitigating
program in response to the SWS survey that noted 19
percent or 3.3 million households experience involuntary
hunger. The number has increased compared to the figures
in March 2006 of 16.9 percent.
Secretary Domingo Panganiban of the National
Anti-Poverty Commission said the increase in poverty
incidence from March to July was due to catastrophic
typhoons Reming and Milenyo, so that the government is
sticking to the 16.9 percent of poverty incidence.
Among
the hunger-mitigation measures are increasing food
production, enhancing food delivery [tindahan ng bayan],
and promoting good nutrition through food
supplementation and feeding programs in public schools.
It also includes management of population and
breastfeeding programs.
Templo
noted that among the Asian economies with massive
malnutrition problems, only Thailand has effectively
addressed hunger because it has linked the programs with
investment plans and appropriate budget allocations.
She said
India, the Philippines and Vietnam still experience high
poverty incidence because they have embarked on hunger
mitigating policies not linked to policies on financial
and investment infrastructures.
The
former Neda official also slammed the short target
deadline for mitigating hunger of six months, cut down
from the original one year. “Policy programs like
poverty reduction and hunger mitigation usually take
three years to see the re-sults. I can’t imagine a
program of halving the hunger data in six months,” said
Templo. --E. Torres |
