Telling the real story behind the “success”

Cheers to ABC-5’s Sentro for painting a clearer picture of the state of the government’s pet store project to alleviate hunger and poverty.

Government officials hailed the success of barangay food terminals that sell affordable food and medicine (known as “Tindahan ni Gloria”) after a Social Weather Stations survey (November 30 – December 3, 2007) showed that hunger incidence in the country had dropped to 16.2 percent from 21.5 percent last September.

Sentro reported last January 4 that several of the government’s “Tindahan ni Gloria” stores , on the contrary, have closed or are in danger of folding up. In a visit to some of the poor areas around Metro Manila where food terminals are most needed, Sentro found that some of stores that have remained open are short in food supplies, including rice and noodles.

To be fair, the report aired the side of assistant agriculture secretary Salvador Salacup and National Food Authority spokesperson Rex Estoperez who both insisted that the terminals have been helpful in alleviating hunger and poverty.

The report would have been better though if it explained the cause behind the decrease of hunger incidence according to the survey. It could have also included exact figures on the number of closed food terminals in the country since the project began.

Comments are closed.