President Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos has issued an executive order which reorganizes the Inter-agency task force on zero hunger.
Executive Order No. 27 dated May 18 amended the EO No. 1 s. 2020 previously issued by the Duterte administration.
In the newly-released order, the task force shall be headed by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary while its co-chairperson will be the National Nutrition Council (NNC) Executive Director and vice-chairperson is the Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary.
The members of the inter-agency task force on zero hunger will be composed of a representative from the Office of the President and secretaries from the following government agencies:
- Department of Agrarian Reform
- Department of Budget and Management
- Department of Education
- Department of Environment and Natural Resources
- Department of Labor and Employment
- Department of Trade and Industry
- Department of Science and Technology
- Department of National Economic Development Authority
- Commission on Higher Education
The order was signed by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin.
Based on the recent survey from the Social Weather Stations (SWS) released earlier this May, there are 2.7 million Filipinos who have experienced involuntary hunger or being hungry and not having anything to eat at least once in the past three months.
SWS noted that while recent results declined by 3 million from December 2022, it is still higher than the 8.8 percent or 2.1 million families in December 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
