The chairman of the House Committee on Poverty Alleviation has proposed the creation of a comprehensive food stamp program that would involve the use of “tap cards” loaded with food credits amounting to PHP5,000.

According to a statement on Tuesday, 1-Pacman Party-list Rep. Mikee Romero said the planned food stamp program targets at least 300,000 families by 2024, and aims to reach 1 million tap card recipients in the following years.

Romero said House Bill 8532 seeks to supplement all poor families’ intake and to “possibly diminish and in time completely eliminate hunger” in urban and rural communities.

Romero said under the bill, beneficiaries can use the cards to buy a select list of healthy products from local retailers accredited by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and they can choose from a list of different food groups.

The proposed program would be conditional and have a “work component” wherein signing up would require finding work to keep the benefits.

The beneficiaries are families whose income does not go beyond PHP8,000 a month.

Romero said DSWD’s planned food stamp program should be integrated with efforts by the Department of Agriculture to expand the market for local farm products.

“This comprehensive food stamp program, as proposed and executed in other countries, are actually agricultural programs. They aim to link rural surpluses with food-poor urban communities. This way, we could effectively address both urban poverty and rural poverty,” Romero said.

“As the lead agency in social welfare and development, the DSWD would formulate policies and plans which provide direction to intermediaries and other implementers in the development and delivery of social welfare and development services,” Romero added.

He said the six-month pilot run would come from grants from Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Marcos has given his nod to the pilot and full implementation of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) “Walang Gutom 2027” food stamp program during a sectoral meeting attended by some Cabinet secretaries, including DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian and Department of Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa last week.

Gatchalian said the pilot run of the food stamp program “will take place shortly” and run for six months.

He reiterated that the pilot test of the Walang Gutom 2027 program would be fully funded by the ADB, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, and the French Development Agency through grants amounting to USD3 million.

He noted that the ADB is working on other trust funds for the planned expansion of the pilot test.

“From the pilot (test), we will see the nuances – what needs to be improved, what needs to be enhanced, what needs to be discontinued. It will run for six months,” Gatchalian said. “We are doing the pilot so that we don’t end up with wasteful spending. We want to make sure that when we do expand the program on its regular run, even if the President already approved it, we want to learn from the pilot and we want to start right. That’s the takeaway.”

On May 23, Gatchalian announced that the “Walang Gutom 2027” program, an initiative aimed at improving access to nutritious food, would benefit about 1 million food-poor families. (PNA)