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By Sam Mediavilla, Reporter
Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya
Jr. said Sunday that Congress is to blame if poverty and hunger
continue to rise in 2007.
Andaya said in a statement cheap
food products that could be bought in the government’s “Tindahan
Natin” rolling stores are expected to cost more this year because
Congress had scrapped funding to set up of 7,725 community-run food
commissaries in barangays in the P1.126-trillion national budget for
2007.
“Money to combat hunger with
would have been bigger had Congress not scrapped the funding. In a
sense Tindahan Nation is a food-delivery scheme owned and operated
by the community itself,” he said.
Congress decided to delete the
P160.1-million additional Tindahan Natin outlets.
The Tindahan Natin stores, which
sell basic goods such as rice, noodles and canned goods at
affordable prices, were launched last year. The stores have grown to
about 1,707, located mostly in depressed areas.
While most of the outlets are
kiosks, some of them are “on wheels” like rolling stores that
make the rounds of barangays.
Andaya has said that despite the
drying up of funding for more Tindahan Natin stores, there are other
“bigger allocations” in the budget that can be used to boost
food production.
“There’s P2.7 billion for the
Food-for-School program that will benefit 1.154 million preschool
and Grade I children. That’s for direct intervention. As to
upstream initiatives like food production, we will be spending P7.2
billion for irrigation to bring water to about 17,000 hectares of
riceland,” he said.
“About the same amount is
earmarked for post harvest facilities so we can reduce our losses
due to poor handling of produce. Basically, the P19 billion we are
spending for AFMA [Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act]
activities this year is aimed at reducing hunger,” he added.
“Farmworkers will be tapped in
building new Tindahan Natin outlets under a food-for-work
arrangement,” Andaya said.
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