ILOILO City – The National Food Authority (NFA) here has started to deliver fortified rice for the Food-for-School program under the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Antique province.

NFA Assistant Regional Dir. Vilma Azarraga said that their provincial office in Antique has already delivered rice to the capital town San Jose de Buenavista with the other towns to receive their own allocation soon.

The NFA provincial office will deliver rice to the 17 towns of Antique with Caluya municipality to be handled by the NFA Region 4 because of its proximity to the island town.

Azarraga said that presently, 46 percent of the rice requirements have been delivered to San Jose de Buenavista. A total number of 30,368 bags of rice is allotted for delivery to Antique.

Under the program, the rice allotment for Antique is good for 70 days with each day care center enrollee receiving a kilo of rice per their one day attendance in school.

The Food-for-School program is a hunger mitigation program which is also intended to encourage parents to send their children to Day Care Centers for their early education.

Antique Provincial Social Welfare and Development Officer Lazaro G. Petinglay said that the program implementation in the previous years proved to be a big help to the day care children and their families for they were assured of their daily rice consumption and that their attendance in school greatly improved. (PNA)