Token feeding

Just recently, I was at the Malitam Elementary School to help at a feeding program that the Shell Tabangao Ladies Circle (STLC) was conducting in partnership with the school and its parents-teachers' association.

Our group arrived to find the feeding venue empty.  It was a far cry from last year’s feeding program with another school when we’d get to the venue and find parent-volunteers in the last stages of cooking the food, and already prepping up the area for the kids.

Making do, but not without

The next time your child complains about his allowance, tell him that children in public elementary schools are allotted only P15 per meal under the Department of Education’s (DepEd) school-based feeding program (SBFP).

Milet Esguerra, who heads the
STLC feeding program,
interacts with the kids.

“We’re giving a little more per child at the Tabangao Elementary School,” says Milet Esguerra, who heads the feeding program of the Shell Tabangao Ladies Circle (STLC) in Batangas City.  She smiles when I appear shocked, but she’s done her research. 

The DepEd’s SBFP allocates a total of P16 per child (P15 per meal; P1 for logistics like cooking utensils, office supplies for reports, minimal transportation expenses, water, LPG, charcoal, firewood, and kerosene) for 120 days. Even privately-funded feeding programs like Jollibee’s “Busog, Lusog, Talino (BLT)” and Ateneo de Manila University’s “Blueplate” allot P11 and P11.50 per child respectively.