Hundreds of day care children in Dalaguete, Cebu, will soon have a steady supply of free and nutritious food and snacks as the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, turned over an about P10-million nutrition-focused sub-project in Sitio Cansusi, Barangay, Dalaguete, as part of its KALAHI-CIDSS– Philippine Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Project (PMNP).
A day care child in Dalaguete hands out rice mongo curls to her mother during the ceremonial turnover and demonstration of the Ri-Mo facility on December 10, 2025.
Led by Assistant Secretary for Promotive Program Edmon Monteverde, the formal turnover on Wednesday saw the beneficiaries’ excitement and appreciation for the project. The project provides learning materials, seedlings, backyard gardening tools, and Rice-Mongo (Ri-Mo) equipment meant to support the production of nutritious snacks for day care children. The initiative seeks to help curb malnutrition and stunting in the municipality.
Local officials see the Ri-Mo facility as a potential economic driver.
Dalaguete Mayor Nelin B. Tambis, an accountant by profession, said that while the local government unit (LGU) plans to provide nutritious food products for free to its constituents, it is also eyeing neighboring towns as future markets to help generate income.
Mayor Tambis welcomed DSWD national and regional officials who attended the turnover, including DSWD Central Visayas Director Shalaine Marie S. Lucero, KALAHI-CIDSS National Program Manager Atty. Bernadette Mapue-Joaquin, and Project Development Officer Inah Mae Domantay.
Following the turnover on Wednesday morning, DSWD and local officials also witnessed an actual production process from the mixing to the packaging, and led an onsite feeding of day care pupils.
Malnutrition in Dalaguete
Dalaguete, Cebu, recorded 562 malnourished children in a 2023 survey, reflecting gaps in maternal nutrition, food products, and opportunities for home-based production.
Meanwhile, in its 2025 OPT Plus Version, Dalaguete recorded a total of 649 stunted children (12.01 percent); 30 children affected by wasting (0.58 percent); 235 underweight kids (4.37 percent), and 92 overweight and obese kids (1.7 percent).
Appropriate intervention
To address this glaring need for malnutrition intervention, Dalaguete and the DSWD and Department of Health, through the PMNP, implemented the sub-project (SP): “IEC Activities with the Provision of Learning Materials, Seedlings, Ri-Mo Equipment, and Backyard Gardening Tools.”
Of the P9.5 million SP cost, P6,715,500 is KALAHI-CIDSS grant, while P2,806,575.00 is the local counterpart contribution.
The project focused on simple, scalable interventions that households could adopt immediately. Implementation was led by 23 women volunteers with 99 percent of training participants also women, highlighting their key role in improving local nutrition.
A core component of the project is the production of rice-mongo complementary food. Supported by the DOST 7 and the DOST-FNRI, the KALAHI-CIDSS provided the equipment and community members were trained in proper processing and handling. This enabled the barangay to produce nutritious food locally, with the facility, equipment, and finished products now serving as reliable community resources.
The LGU funded the building that houses the Ri-Mo machinery, while the Department of Science and Technology- Food and Nutrition Research Institute (DOST-FNRI) provided the technical training.
With the current capacity of flour mixer available on site, one round of production can generate an output of 10 kilograms of rice-mongo curls. The Ri-Mo facility can also produce an instant blend of the rice-mongo for infants. The FNRI-suggested serving size for both the rice-mongo instant blend and curls is 30 grams.
Support, Operational sustainability
The Municipality of Dalaguete is not new to the KALAHI-CIDSS program implementation. From 2014 to November 2025, the KALAHI-CIDSS delivered 9,101 completed sub-projects, implemented across various modalities (from NCDDP, MCC, BUB, and Pag-Abot program, among others) benefitting 3,462,399 beneficiaries.
Across these implementations, the DSWD KALAHI-CIDSS in partnership with the community delivered 3,875 road projects, 789 day care centers, and 469 water systems, among others.
In her speech, Mayor Tambis expressed gratitude to DSWD KALAHI-CIDSS.
“This milestone is a testament to the power of collective action and partnership. I want to give it free sa among babies sa Dalaguete and children sa daycare center but I know it takes cost and I was already computing in my mind how to recover the cost, so I will market this to the other LGUs once we establish the production,” she said.
“Maningkamot ta. Ang atong raw materials is rice and monggo so I talk to the rice farmers in Salog, we have a small rice production, so kami ang mopalit sa ilang rice. Hopefully next year, we can get our raw materials from our own farmers,” she added.
For his part, Asec. Monteverde encouraged the LGU and the parents to prioritize their children’s nutrition.
“Let’s give them proper nutrition, so that when they study, they have better absorption capacity to learn. Mas malaki ang future or horizons na pwede nyang mapuntahan,” he said. ###