Feeding the poor

Can a speaker of the House beat the odds, and get the plum post, assuming there is no change in the 1987 Constitution? Monching Mitra, Joe de Venecia and Manny Villar all faltered in their quest.

What about the Senate, until Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and martial law, the breeding ground for the presidency?

That breeding ground tradition has also gone to pot.

Cory was a widow of a political martyr.

FVR was a soldier and defense secretary.

Erap was a senator, true, but he was a vice president with an actor’s colorful narrative when he ran for president in 1998.

GMA succeeded the hapless Erap through a political coup from her elected vicepresidency after six years as senator.

PNoy was a senator, true, but it was the death of Cory which catapulted him to become a presidentiable.

Duterte was the first city mayor from distant Davao to capture the nation’s imagination, and won big over three other well-known and strong contenders: Mar Roxas, Grace Poe and VP Jojo Binay.

People voted for PFRM Jr. not because they recalled his senatorial performance, but because the Marcos “brand” was well resurrected through years of careful planning and good marketing, no matter how the “pinklawans” label it as “fake.”

Anyone with moist eyes for the presidency should study very carefully the lessons gleaned from several candidacies – from

HOW serious is the prevalence of hunger in the country?

If the results of a survey in the first quarter of this year are any indication, it’s a matter of urgent concern, as 9.8 percent of Filipino families or an estimated 2.7 million people experienced involuntary hunger or being hungry and not having anything to eat at least once in the past three months.

That dire situation has prompted the national government to launch the food stamp program aimed at addressing hunger, especially among poor families.

Under the program, P3,000 food credits will be given to target beneficiaries to purchase food from accredited retailers of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

The target beneficiaries of the food stamp program are not only the 10 percent of the total number of Filipino households, but also single parents, pregnant and lactating women.

The DSWD and the Department of Health will check the nutritional value of the food to be given to program beneficiaries. The DSWD has said it would need P40 billion annually to carry out the program.

We understand that the food stamp program will be funded entirely with grants from the Asian Development Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency and French Development Agency.

But the government should look for other sources of funds so that the program can be self-sustaining in the long run.