4-Life

Communication Arts
Ms. Alata
DE LOS REYES, Lirene
DEL ROSARIO, Kirsten
DELA PASION, Ana
EVANGELISTA, Lea

13
14
16
20

Have you ever wondered why some children look for food inside trash cans?
Dont you feel so upset whenever you see them? Our group considers this problem
as something to take action on. Hunger has been a problem for too many families in
different parts of the world. From Ghana, Africa to the slums in New York City, USA,
there have been tragic stories about impoverish people trying to find a way to feed
their families every single day. Though we are not going to discuss the hunger
around the world, we will be focusing on the hunger being experienced here in the
Philippines, specifically in the Santisima Trinidad Parish Community and how we
can diminish hunger in our own way.
The Philippines is a minor country if contrasted with numerous others,
however we have a very big population and in that case, there are many who
experience hunger. As evidence, here is a table from the National Statistics Office in
2011:
Total

Region

Philippines

Poor

Non-Poor

Number of
Families
('000)

Percentage of
Families who
Experienced Hunger

Number of
Families
('000)

Percentage of Families
who Experienced
Hunger

Number of
Families
('000)

Percentage
of Families
who
Experienced
Hunger

19,128

6.3

5,737

14.5

13,391

2.8

As seen in the table, 19, 128 people in our population of 100 million are
starving, and this does not include the individuals who are registered in NSO.
Possible reason for this is high priced goods. One of these goods is the most
important part of the typical Filipino cuisine, rice. According to Senga (1999), our
rice production was ideally balanced during the late 70s with 300 grams per capita
per day, unfortunately, it dropped to 282 grams per capita per day in 1993. Though
18 grams deduction is not much of a problem for 4 people, imagine those who have
a family of 5 or more who additionally needs financial support. Almost half (47%, to
be exact) of the population in the rural area are impoverished because of the rapid
price growth and it led to mostly not buying at all, back in 1997. As stated by ONeill
(1986), another cause for hunger is that farming and/or if hunting failed because of
droughts and floods that affect the raw materials being produced were being
destroyed. Natural disasters are just one of many causes of scarce resources.
In the Santisima Trinidad Parish Community, the problems that we have
observed on our walk through during our third year of high school, is that they are
over-populated despite the very small space they have acquired. As said by Sarhandi
(2010), lack of knowledge about family planning is a very crucial cause of overpopulation. Individuals decide to disregard the fact that people have to know the
priorities on whether or not they are going to start a family. Another would be
unemployment. According to Santos (2014), the Philippines has the highest number
of unemployment rate in the whole Association of Southeast Asian Countries
(ASEAN), which is the cause for families that cannot eat three times a day or even
have food on their table once a day. Most of the people who arent employed have a
difficulty in giving the needs of their family.
Thus, lessening this problem will prevent the suffering of our fellow Filipinos.
Hunger is inevitable, but it can be reduced. Our country is experiencing poverty and
it goes hand in hand with hunger. Food is one of the most important needs of an
individual. Specifically, one of the problems in the country is that the available goods
exceed minimum wage budgets of the people. This means that not everyone has the
capacity to purchase goods that are expensive. Second is the unbalanced production
of food because of scarce resources. Moreover, according to Stolz (2012), the
climate, war, agricultural practices, poverty, and overpopulation lead to scarcity of
food. There are limited sources but the people have unlimited needs. Thus, the
resources are not enough and cannot suffice the needs of individuals. In Santisima
Trinidad, the most well-known problems seen are unemployment, poverty and lack
of education. The families in Santisima Trinidad experience hunger basically

because they are too many in a family and some do not have source of livelihood to
provide for their families. Family planning is important because it is a key to
comprehensive sexual and reproductive health. According to Gender Health
Organization (2000), family planning aims to better manage household and natural
resources, secure education and health for every member in the family. Also, lack of
income is caused by unemployment. This means that there is no enough money to
provide for their family.
Moreover, one of the most massive problems that caused hunger is
overpopulation. First, there is an uncontrollable population growth in a world of
limited sources. As the population increase, the demand of food also increases
(Stolz, 2012). It will be difficult to match food production to population growth.
Apparently, the poor people have more members in the family rather than those
who are not. Thus, it will be harder to provide for every members of the family.
Secondly, it is also caused by poverty which is also a crisis like hunger. According to
Cohen and Reeves (1995), poverty is linked to poor economic performance, unequal
distribution of income and political structure that makes the poor people powerless.
Also, ONeill (1986) stated that the social and economic structure hinders the poor
to their entitlement to food.
On the other hand, hunger affects the people in different aspects. First, there
is an increase in diseases and deficiencies. Basically, the poor families are more
focused on spending their limited money to food and less money is spent in health
care. Madeley (2012) also said that if the food is scarce, people cannot live in healthy
and active lives. It will affect their nutrition and intellect. Second, criminal rates will
increase. According to ONeill (1986), the people who are experiencing hunger will
be more prone to committing crimes like robbing and stealing. The people will
become selfish and desperate to earn money therefore; they will think that these
actions will become a way to obtain income. Second, child labor will increase. Child
labor keeps children in attending school. At an early age, children are obliged in
helping to provide for the family. This may lead to slavery, child trafficking, debt
bondage and illicit activities. This can harm the children mentally, physically,
socially and emotionally.
Perhaps everybody agrees with the opinion that hunger is one of the greatest
and at the same time most important problem everywhere, especially those
countries that are part of the Third World like our own country, Philippines. A
problem this broad is quite hard to be solved because its solutions demand big

efforts from people, national and international organizations, and different

countries all over the world. Moreover, there is a saying that If you give somebody
a fish, he wont be hungry for a day, but if you give him a net and teach him how to
fish, he wont be hungry for years. According to this statement, we should not only
feed hungry people but also teach them how to avoid famine in their land as well,
because monetary relief will just be a short time solution for hunger in an area.
Furthermore, according to Alamazan (1984), possible method for preventing famine
is the control of conception by contraception and abortion because if the population
wont increase too fast, then the goods that are available will be enough for
everyone. Together with this, if governments, organizations, enterprises, political
parties and of course citizens would not spend too much money on extraneous
materials, election campaigns, advertisements and luxurious goods, we could spend
it on education, aid it for the poor and, in this manner, prevent poverty and hunger
all over the world especially in our own country.
With the issue of hunger and malnutrition in the Philippines, government
programs tend to take action to resolve or at least reduce the causes of hunger.
HAIN is a government program that focuses on how to reduce hunger and improve
the nutrition situation of households. The program aims to reduce the prevalence of
underweight-for-age among newborn babies to children in the age of eight, improve
food intake on households, increase income opportunities for families and improve
knowledge and practice on key health and nutrition concepts. HAIN plans to attain
their goals by distributing hot meals and rice for particular groups and by having
interventions like health services, nutrition education and counselling on livelihood,
education and employment. One other government program is the # Hunger Project.
They suggest that a way to reduce hunger is to have better income distribution.
Agrawal, a member of the program said that (2011),I think one of the biggest issues
that we need to start looking at is how should we address income distribution
problems that can help bring down hunger...We need to look at this in the mediumterm and long-term. This requires the utilization of cash and income in a proper
way. They also find day care centers and feeding programs as a way of reducing
hunger. So far, hunger is a nationwide controversy that has people launching
programs to be able to help out in resolving the issue.
Specifically, this study aim to answer the following questions:
1. If we teach mothers about nutritional values and how to lengthen their food
supply, what will happen to the problem of hunger?

2. If we help the community budget their food and offer them cooking recipes,
what will happen to the people experiencing wages?

METHODS
Overall, our research is focused on resolving the issue of hunger in St.
Scholastica's College Manila adopted community, Santisima Trinidad Parish
Community. Our objective is to be able to teach the community to budget their
expenses and give them manageable and affordable cooking recipes. Furthermore,
we will also teach at least 10% of the adults especially mothers nutritional values
and how to prolong their food supply because if they learn how to budget their food,
they could use the extra money for education, medicine and other basic needs. With
the goals we hope to achieve, we look forward to seeing the community in a lighter
state in the future. We plan to complete our objective by gathering resources on low
budgeting and alternative goods and services and have step by step procedures of
healthy family meals, although there would still be problems on their community
like unemployment and the increase on taxes that we could not be resolved easily. It
is time that we realize that we have hunger not because there is lack of resources,
but because of the distribution system. (Baviera,1999)"The problem of food security
in the Philippines is one of access." This statement proves that resources are not
being distributed properly. It is normally observed that people with more wealth
have access to more resources than that of unable people. Nonetheless, we would
still hold up to our goals of bringing the community to a lighter end.
By collecting data on our research, weve sorted solutions for our research
questions. If we are able to help mothers in learning nutritional values and how to
lengthen their food supply, we would be able to contribute to reducing hunger
alongside the other government organizations like HAIN. For the people
experiencing wages but still seek our assistance on budgeting, they would surely
have more advantages, although we would prioritize into people and families who
don not experience wages. We see that this could be possible with the full
determination of the group and individual supporters who would want to help in
the activity.

REFERENCES:

Aimazan, R., Liamzon, A., Salinas, A., Solid um, E. (1984).Hunger amidst plenty.Manila: .
Philippine Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas.

Alto-Senga, M. (1999).Food Security in China and Southeast Asia. Manila: PDRC. Madeley, J. .
(2002). Food For All: The need for a new agriculture. Manila: IBON Books.

Cohen, M. & Reeves, D. (1995 May). Causes of Hunger.Retrieved September 2014 from .
http://writefix.com/?page_id=754.

O'Neill, O. (1986). Forces of Hunger.London:Allen&Unwin Inc.

Stolz, E. (2012, October 21). Top 5 causes of hunger. Retrieved September 2014 from .
http://gccblogs.concernusa.org/2011/10/21/top-5-causes-of-hunger/

(na).(nd) Retrieved from http://www.nnc.gov.ph/home/item/334-hain-programcontinuing-the-fight-against-poverty-hunger-and-malnutrition%E2%80%8B

(na).(nd) Retrieved from http://www.rappler.com/moveph/issues/hunger/52036hunger-project-launch-collaboration-ph-hunger
(na)(1996). What is child labour. Retrieved September 2014 from .
http://www.ilo.org/ipec/facts/lang--en/index.htm.