Feeding program to continue amid COVID-19

Donna G. Tapnio

THERE are particular days during the school year when schools conduct a feeding program for its learners. Now that we are in a pandemic, how does the Department of Education go about this?

The feeding program for children will continue despite the health crisis we are in – but instead of preparing hot meals in schools like before, nutritious food products will be delivered to households by the barangay directly to the homes of the kids, or picked up by parents from schools.

The DepEd said among the changes in the feeding program this year, since learning will now be home-based, is that the feeding period is reduced to 60 days for the regular component, which includes nutritious food products, and 50 days for the milk component.

As a backgrounder, President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law Republic Act No. 11037 or the Masustansyang Pagkain Para sa Batang Pilipino Act in June 2018, which establishes a national feeding program for undernourished children in public daycare centers, kindergarten, and elementary school.

Under the law, the government shall provide a supplemental feeding program for daycare children, a school-based feeding program for public school children from kinder to Grade 6, a milk-feeding program, a micronutrient feeding program, health examinations, vaccinations, and deworming among others.

The law also includes the creation of a National Nutrition Information System which will harmonize all existing national and local nutrition databases to identify individuals, groups, and/or localities that have the highest magnitude of hunger and undernutrition.

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The author is Teacher III at Dolores Elementary School, Bacolor North

District, Division of Pampanga