- DepEd Negros Oriental to feed 34,465 students under the 2025-2026 school-based feeding program, including kindergarten and special education learners.
- PHP 112 million allocated to support malnourished students, expanding beyond previous focus on 'wasted' and 'severely wasted' Grades 1-6 pupils.
- Stunting rate drops to 9.2% in the province, with Guihulngan City and Mabinay town reporting the highest undernutrition cases in 2024.
The Negros Oriental Department of Education (DepEd) announced it aims to feed a total of 34,465 students for its school-based feeding program for school year 2025-2026. At Kapihan sa PIA forum, DepEd program coordinator Melanie Mae Austero explained that this school year, the program will reach all kindergarten and non-graded students not covered by previous years.
Non-graded learners are those under Special Education (SPED) programs not using the regular grading system because of different needs. Learners from Grades 1 to 6 who are 'wasted' and 'severely wasted' were the target beneficiaries of the feeding program previously.
Child wasting is a child who is underweight for his or her height and is the consequence of recent acute weight loss or failure to gain weight. Austero stated the DepEd had assigned approximately PHP 112 million for the feeding program.
During the last school year, 22,000 students out of the total number of 179,000 were found to be wasted and severely wasted and availed of the feeding program.
In the meantime, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Liland Estacion reported that the province's stunting rate is at 9.2 percent. She attributed this to collective efforts to reduce the province's undernutrition rate.
"We have a stunting rate of 9.2 percent, and this is not really high compared to the national stunting rate of 30 percent," Estacion said. "Every year our stunting rate is decreasing". She mentioned that for wasting (weight for age), the province has 2.3 percent and underweight is at 4.9 percent.
The Provincial Health Office records indicated Guihulngan City had the most prevalent underweight children (weight for age) and stunting (length/height for age) and Mabinay town had the most number of wasting (weight for length/height) in 2024.
