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SINCE the subject of food (or scarcity of it) is the
flavor of the month—at least as a talking point—a lawmaker from
Mindanao (which traditionally is considered as the breadbasket of
the Philippines) is boldly suggesting that the Arroyo government
should consider adopting its own version of the US Food Stamp
Program in order to augment the planned emergency cash distributions
to 300,000 indigent families in the poorest 20 provinces who face
worsening hunger due to soaring rice and other commodity prices.
“Subject to rigorous controls,
distributing emergency cash allowances via the Land Bank of the
Philippines is okay to help families in the countryside that are
most vulnerable to hunger. But our sense is that a new food stamp
program would be much better,” says Cotabato Rep. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza.
She points out that the US
already has a food stamp program that the Philippines could use as
possible basis for the design of its own viable plan,
Rep. Taliño-Mendoza was
referring to the US Food Stamp Program, a federal aid system that
provides food to low-income Americans. Individual states distribute
the benefits, but the program is administered via the US Department
of Agriculture.
Most food stamp benefits are now
disbursed using Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards, although
the program has used paper vouchers for much of its history.
The number of Americans receiving
food stamps is projected to reach 29 million this year.
Beneficiaries must have near-poverty incomes to qualify for aid
averaging $100 a month per family member.
“If we look at the
beneficiaries of the US food stamp program, more than half of them
are children, while the rest are seniors, people with disabilities,
or those who recently lost their jobs and are trying to find new
employment. We could duplicate this here, though on a much smaller
scale, for the poorest families,” explains Taliño-Mendoza.
“There is no question that a
highly efficient food stamp program can respond more aggressively to
the nutrition and health needs of children and women, including
pregnant women and lactating mothers,” she adds.
The Mindanao lawmaker said she
was unsettled by the potential adverse consequences of soaring food
prices and worsening hunger on the health and well being of children
and mothers in the rural areas.
“In fact, once we have our food
stamp plan in place, we can also use it later on to help households
adversely affected by natural disasters, just like in the US, when
they used the program to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.”
“There are many households in
the provinces that have at least one gainfully employed member. Yet,
some of these households with hard-working members are simply not
earning enough to adequately feed their children or elderly,”
states Taliño-Mendoza.
Incidentally, she proposed the
food stamp program not long after the Department of Social Welfare
and Development bared a P5-billion plan to extend financial aid to
some 300,000 underprivileged families.
The aid would be in P500 monthly
cash grants per household, plus an extra P300 monthly for every
child sent to school, up to a maximum of three children.
Taliño-Mendoza, however,
believes that the grants should not be limited to families living in
the country’s 20 poorest provinces. “All provinces have their
share of extremely impoverished households, so the grants should be
nationwide,” she stressed.
bizzfizz_98@yahoo.com
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