DepEd Feeding Program Flagged by COA amid Negative Reports
COA – The Commission on Audit discovered some problems with regards to the DepEd Feeding Program under Vice President Sara Duterte’s leadership.
In the Philippines, the government office that does the audit observation is the Commission on Audit. It flags government offices and agencies when there are problems that need to be addresses. Recently, it flagged the 2023 program of the Department of Education.
The said program is the education department’s feeding program for the children who are under the nourishment needed by their bodies. Then, the Department of Education was led by Vice President Sara Duterte who resigned from being the DepEd secretary a few months ago.
Based on a report on Inquirer, the COA flagged the P5.69 billion feeding program of DepEd under the leadership of Vice President and former education secretary Sara Duterte due to delays in the delivery of the food or the alleged non-delivery at times and the other conditions that made the nutribun and milk unfit for consumption.
According to the report, some food items were found to have pests, molds, or past their expiration dates which make them unfit for consumption. At least 21 SDOs or Schools Division Offices reported delays or the non-delivery of the food items under the School Based Feeding Program (SBFP) of DepEd.
The state auditors also reportedly found some of the food items in the DepEd regional offices of Metro Manila, Central Luzon, and Northern Mindanao with unsanitary packaging. There are also those with questionable expiry dates and molds on the bread that were meant to be given to the students.
Furthermore, based on the report, pests and insects were found in the Karabun or the Milky bun and the E-nutribun during an inspection conducted by COA in the DepEd SDO in Aurora province. The state auditors also reported found other food items either unripe or rotten.
“Some items were delivered in poor condition as some packaging diffused with no reasonable amount of air to maintain their freshness,” COA wrote in its report.
The Commission on Audit called on all the SDOs involved to address the issues. The state auditors also suggested the adding of alternatives or extra options in the menu of food to be distributed to the students.