The promise of a better future through education rings hollow when children arrive at school with empty stomachs and leave still hungry.
In the Philippines, where one in four children under five is stunted, our school feeding programs have become a stark illustration of how good intentions can be crippled by bureaucratic inefficiency and systemic neglect.
The recent EDCOM II Year Two Report lays bare an uncomfortable truth: we are failing our most vulnerable citizens not through a lack of resources, but through a spectacular mismanagement of them.
Consider the mathematics of malnutrition: the Department of Education’s School-Based Feeding Program provides meals containing just 350 calories per week – a mere fraction of what growing children need.
This nutritional deficit is not just about empty stomachs; it’s about empty futures.
When children can’t concentrate in class because they’re hungry, when they miss school due to preventable illnesses, when their bodies and minds are stunted by chronic malnutrition, we’re not just failing them today – we’re mortgaging the nation’s future.
The doubling of the SBFP budget to ₱11.7 billion in 2024 would be cause for celebration if money alone could solve the problem.
But as the Commission on Audit’s findings reveal, our feeding programs are plagued by expired food, undelivered meals, and spoiled milk – symptoms of a deeper malaise in our governance system.
The fragmentation of responsibilities among DepEd, DSWD, and DOH has created a bureaucratic labyrinth where accountability goes to die.
While agencies squabble over jurisdictions and struggle with coordination, children in classrooms across the country are literally growing smaller – physically and in their potential.
The ₱3,870 we spend per child on health-related Early Childhood Care and Development services – less than half the average in comparable countries – reflects not just budgetary constraints but a failure of priorities.
This crisis demands more than incremental changes; it requires a fundamental reimagining of how we deliver essential services to our children.
We need a unified strategy that breaks down bureaucratic silos, a robust monitoring system that ensures every peso reaches its intended beneficiary, and a commitment to meeting international nutritional standards.
Most importantly, we need leadership that recognizes that feeding our children properly isn’t just a social service – it’s an investment in the nation’s future.
The consequences of inaction are clear: another generation of Filipinos whose potential will be limited not by their abilities, but by our failure to provide them with the most basic foundation for learning.
We can’t build a knowledge economy on empty stomachs and stunted dreams.
The time has come to recognize that our fragmented, underfunded, and poorly managed feeding programs are not just failing our children – they’re failing our nation’s future.
Until we treat child nutrition with the same urgency as economic indicators and infrastructure projects, we will continue to harvest the bitter fruits of malnutrition: a workforce unable to compete in the global economy, a population vulnerable to health crises, and a country that cannot reach its full potential.
The choice can never be any clearer: we either fix our feeding programs now, or we continue to starve our nation’s future, one child at a time.
