Del Carmen and Baybay City Earn Top 10 Honors at Walang Gutom Awards 2026

Del Carmen, Surigao del Norte and Baybay City, Leyte—both SPACES Project partners were named Top 10 awardees at the 2026 Walang Gutom Awards for their food security programs.

Two partner LGUs, one shared recognition

The 2026 Walang Gutom Awards recognized 20 local government units across the Philippines for anti-hunger initiatives. Two of the Top 10 awardees are LGUs we work alongside through the SPACES Project: the Municipality of Del Carmen in Surigao del Norte and Baybay City in Leyte.

The awards were conferred by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Galing Pook Foundation on May 11–12, 2026, at the Makati Palace Hotel in Makati City. Top 1 to 10 awardees received PHP 2 million each in livelihood assistance under the DSWD’s Sustainable Livelihood Program, while Top 11 to 20 received PHP 1 million each.

The recognition matters for what it signals: that locally led food systems work—designed with communities, not imposed on them—is being seen at the national level. For Del Carmen and Baybay City, the awards reflect years of work that predates the ceremony.

What Del Carmen built

Del Carmen’s FARM TO SPOON program—formally, Fishery and Agriculture Resiliency Management Through Outstanding Sustainable Policies and Participatory Oversight and Ownership—was named among the Top 10 Outstanding Entries for 2026.

The program is not a single project. It integrates existing municipal ordinances and initiatives: community gardens, savings groups, social protection mechanisms, civil society engagement, and fisheries regulations. It was developed through Social Accountability training and participatory program creation between the LGU and civil society organizations, with support from the SPACES Project.

The result is a local food system that connects production to nutrition rather than treating them as separate concerns. Del Carmen sits on Siargao Island, home to one of the largest mangrove forests in the Philippines, spanning roughly 5,000 hectares. The municipality’s approach links fisheries management, agricultural production, and community ownership—recognizing that food security on an island depends on both land and sea.

The recognition follows a national win in 2024, when the Farm-to-Spoon Program was named a national winner in a related recognition scheme. The 2026 Walang Gutom Awards placement is a continuation of that trajectory, not a starting point.

Mayor Alfredo M. Coro led the LGU’s presentation, alongside Municipal Agricultural Officer Fidel Jr. Gonzales, Municipal Social Welfare and Development Officer Daniel Dumpa, and the wider municipal team.

What Baybay City built

Baybay City’s Food Resiliency Program was named among the Top 10 awardees of the 2026 Walang Gutom Awards. Mayor Jose Carlos “Boying” Cari presented the program during the final deliberation on May 11.

The program’s design is straightforward in principle and ambitious in practice. It strengthens local food production, supports farmers and fisherfolk, provides a market for their produce, and directs strategic investments across rice, corn, livestock, and fishery sectors—while ensuring that vulnerable families can access nutritious food.

The operational numbers tell the story more concretely. According to a Baybay City LGU report cited by the Philippine Information Agency, 431 farmers have benefited from farm tractor services, free seeds, fertilizers, farm tools, and equipment from the City Agriculture Office. Two hundred fifteen fish culture compartments have been established across 59 barangays for tilapia production, with free fingerlings and feeds from the Coastal Resources and Fishery Management Office. The program also facilitated the formation of the Baybay City Rootcrops Farmers Association, whose sweet potato harvests are sold at the Baybay City Rootcrops Processing Center and processed into chips, baby food, and milk drink.

The connection to the national Walang Gutom Program is direct. Farm produce and processed products from Baybay—high-value vegetables, fish, root crops, milk—are intended to supply the demand created by the program’s food stamp beneficiaries, who can purchase nutritious food from accredited, farmer-driven stores. Local producers gain a market. Vulnerable families gain access. The same transaction serves both ends of the food system.

“This achievement is a testament to our collective commitment to ensuring that no family in Baybay goes hungry,” Mayor Cari said.

Baybay City shares the Region 8 recognition with Palompon, Leyte and Arteche, Eastern Samar, both of which also placed in the Top 10.

Why the SPACES connection matters

Both LGUs are partners under the SPACES Project, Strengthening Participation and Accountability Through Civil Society Organizations and Engagement with Subnational and National Government. The project is supported by Australia in the Philippines and implemented by Galing Pook, AGREA Foundation, Oxfam Pilipinas, and the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia (ISEA).

SPACES works across 10 project areas in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Its premise is that food security and nutrition policies are stronger when civil society organizations and local governments co-create them, and when communities have a structured role in oversight. The project supports social accountability mechanisms—the practical arrangements through which citizens and CSOs can participate in planning, monitor implementation, and hold local governments accountable for commitments.

Del Carmen’s FARM TO SPOON program is a direct product of that approach. It did not emerge from a national template. It was built through a participatory process involving the LGU and CSOs, supported by SPACES, and grounded in the municipality’s existing ordinances and community structures.

Baybay City’s Food Resiliency Program reflects a similar logic: collaboration among the local government, farmers, partner agencies, and community organizations to stabilize food supply and reach vulnerable sectors. The program’s emphasis on farmer-driven stores and local processing keeps value within the local economy rather than routing it through external intermediaries.

These are not outcomes we claim credit for. They are outcomes the LGUs and their communities built. Our role, through SPACES, has been to support the process—the training, the facilitation, the space for civil society to engage meaningfully—and to help connect local experience to wider policy conversations.

What the awards do and do not measure

The Walang Gutom Awards recognize innovative and sustainable local initiatives against hunger and malnutrition. They are a signal of national attention, not a certification that hunger has been solved in either locality. The PHP 2 million allocation attached to the Top 10 placement is intended to support and expand the LGUs’ initiatives, not to declare them complete.

What the awards do document is that both LGUs have built systems, not one-off distributions, but repeatable arrangements that link production, processing, marketing, and nutrition. Del Carmen connects fisheries management, agriculture, and community gardens within a participatory governance framework. Baybay City connects farmer support, local processing, and food-stamp-accessible markets.

Those systems will need to keep adapting. Island food security in Siargao faces pressures from tourism, fisheries depletion, and climate variability. Baybay City’s program operates in a region exposed to typhoons and dependent on agricultural livelihoods that are sensitive to weather and price shocks. The recognition does not change those conditions. It does, however, bring resources and visibility that can help the LGUs continue the work.

Padayon

To the leaders, farmers, fishers, and community organizations behind these programs: this recognition belongs to you. We are glad to have walked alongside you through SPACES, and we remain committed to supporting the systems you have built.

To learn more about the SPACES Project and our work with local governments on food security and nutrition, explore our programmes and updates on our official channels. LGUs and civil society organizations interested in the SPACES approach can reach out through our contact page.