PIMENTEL SCORES DELAYED RELEASE OF FUNDS FOR HUNGER PROGRAM

MANILA -- Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Nene" Q. Pimentel,
Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said the Arroyo administration
has nobody to blame but itself for the worsening
hunger incidence, which contradicts its oft-repeated
claim that the economy has recovered.

Pimentel said the administration should stop making
Congress a scapegoat for the rise in the incidence of
hunger to a record-high 19 percent of Filipino
households, comprising 3.5 million families, according
to the Feb. 24-27 survey of the Social Weather
Stations.

He said the hunger problem was aggravated by the
government's failure to release funds for the
supplemental feeding and day-care centers for
malnourished children being supervised by the
Department of Social Welfare and Development and
Department of Education.

Pimentel cited an admission by DSWD Secretary
Esperanza Cabral that these food subsidy programs had
been suspended for the last four or five months for
lack of fund releases.

He said Congress should not be blamed for the
non-release of funds because it approved a P47 billion
supplemental budget, which included food subsidy
funds, in November, 2006.

"Since there was already an approved supplemental
budget, Malacañang and the Department should have
released the funds for supplemental feeding and day
care centers by as early as November or December,
2001," the minority leader said.

Pimentel sought an explanation from the Palace and DBM
for the apparent freezing of funds to address the
problem of malnutrition and hunger among
schoolchildren during the past four months (from
November, 2006 to February, 2007) when funds were
already available through the supplemental budget that
had been approved by Congress.

The minority leader cited statements by Palace and
budget officials that funds for food subsidy were
released only in the third quarter of March this year.
This includes P1 billion to DepEd and P290 million to
the DSWD.

Pimentel said the delay in the fund releases for
hunger mitigation program has cast doubts on the
sincerity and seriousness of the Arroyo administration
to solve the problem.

"The Palace should stop barking at the wrong tree for
the rise in the hunger incidence. There was money
available to address the problem. The question is why
was the money not released on time?" he said.
-o0o-