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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Worrisome hunger stats making government act

Editorial

RESULTS of the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey revealed on Monday that 22.5 percent of Filipino families experienced hunger in the fourth quarter of 2011. By all accounts, these people—who make up more than one-fifth of our nation’s families and are so poor that they went hungry—did not have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

It was a non-commissioned survey, meaning it was not ordered by a group that may have had a particular use for the results.

The SWS survey question on hunger, translated into English, was: “In the last three months, did it happen even once that your family experienced hunger and not have anything to eat? (YES, NO)”

The respondents who said that they experienced hunger were also asked: “Did it happen ONLY ONCE, A FEW TIMES, OFTEN, or ALWAYS?”

Those who said that they experienced hunger “only once” or “a few times” were classified as people with “Moderate Hunger.” Those who experience hunger “often” or “always” were grouped under “Severe Hunger.”

It is good to hear that there was a 0.3-point decline in families that only experienced “moderate hunger” in the October-November-December quarter survey (3.57 million families). But there was a 1.2-point increase in families that experienced “severe hunger” (955,000 families).

These figures take the shine out of an SWS report last week—based on the same fourth-quarter 2011 poll—that said that there were less poor people. In the July-August-September quarter of 2011, 52 percent of Filipino families were found to be poor or at least described themselves as so. In the succeeding last quarter of 2011, only 47 percent of families said that they were poor.

The conclusion to be drawn from these statistics is that while the number of poor people fell a little, the number of hungry people among the poor increased.

In previous editorials, we warned the administration of President Benigno Aquino 3rd about these statistics. It may be a comforting thought to the President and the Cabinet’s economic team that despite more than half of the population claiming themselves to be poor and hungry (at least some of the time), most of them still trust President Aquino and believe that he is doing a very good job as their leader. Otherwise, how could surveys—both of the SWS and Pulse Asia—show that 70 percent of our people have confidence in the President and rated his performance as good or very good, even excellent?

Hunger statistics concern Aquino officials
The good news is that officials of the Aquino administration are concerned that the number of Filipinos going hungry continues to rise.

Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman and her fellow executives and social workers at her department have cancelled the names of thousands of Conditional Cash Transfer beneficiaries, whom investigations have found are not really poor people but somehow found their way into the roster of recipients. The department is also accelerating its food aid programs throughout the country.

National Economic Development Authority chiefCayetano Paderanga has been quoted as saying that all the government agencies are helping solve poverty- and hunger-related problems and fine-tuning their programs.

But the most cheerful news comes from the Department of Agriculture (DA).

Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala is still optimistic that the Philippines will become self-sufficient in rice and achieve food security by next year.

He is pushing for “simple and little ways” to improve the rice yield of our farms. Why not adopt upland rice farming so that we don’t only depend on rice fields in the lowland? He is working to multiply the irrigated land areas. His target is to increase our country’s irrigated land areas from 1.3 million hectares to 2 million.

Perhaps more than any other recent Agriculture secretary, Alcala has revived faith in and high expectations from agricultural extension workers. He often spoke of them being the key to the success of the food security program. He sounds like the Agriculture secretaries of the 1950s and 1960s, when we were not dependent of rice imports and were looked up to as models in agricultural production.

Alcala has also pinned his hopes on the Food Staples Sufficient Program (FSSP), on which P61.7 billion will be spent to ensure food security by 2013.

The program aims to attain for the country sufficiency not just in rice, but also in white corn, cassava (kamoteng kahoy), sweet potato (kamote), and other staples.

The FSSP budget will be used on agricultural infrastructures—irrigation, farm-to-market roads (FMRs), post-harvesting facilities, and the like. For irrigation, the Agriculture department will work with the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) to construct new irrigation systems—not giant dams, we hope—but local water-impounding modules that seem to be more effective.

NIA is also expected to rehabilitate and upgrade irrigation infrastructures that need repair.

Under the Agriculture department is the Bureau of Soils and Water Management (BSWM). The bureau has secured a P500-million fund for the construction of 4,584 small-scale irrigation projects. These include some 1,200 shallow tube wells, 75 small water reservoirs, 56 small-water impounding projects, and 3,130 spring developments.

The old problem that rice farmers have—where to dry, store and process their harvest—will be solved, with the Agriculture department spending P11.28 billion for post-harvest infrastructure facilities.

For rice development and the upgrading of seeds, the Agriculture department has a budget of P6.2 billion.

Corn production will have a P951-million fund. P11.35 billion will be spent for commodity crops and an additional P1.3 billion for high-value crops.

The livestock and fishing subsectors of the agricultural economy will have a budget of at least P2.9 billion. It is not enough to make us a global champion in fish and sea-animal production, which is estimated to be the sunshine industry in the coming decades, but it’s better than nothing, so it’s a good start.

The Agriculture department will have P5 billion to build some 1,284 kilometers of farm-to-market roads equivalent to 1,284 kilometers.

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