MANILA - Students at the Muntinlupa Elementary School got more than they bargained for when rice packets they received from the Department of Education (DepEd) were found to be crawling with insects.

Each rice bag, delivered from a National Food Authority (NFA) storage facility Thursday last week, were contaminated with rice weevils (locally called "bokbok").

Rice weevils propagate in storehouse conditions, and it takes 2 to 4 days for larvae deposited inside rice grains to develop.

The rice bags were distributed among students from kindergarten to Grade 3 at the Muntinlupa Elementary School.

The NFA re-packs rice for the multi-billion peso-worth DepEd feeding program for school children called "Food-for-School."

The Muntinlupa Elementary School's nurse, Joanne Morales, was concerned about the health effects of contaminated rice.

"I'm very worried because I'm their school nurse and we have to distribute the rice to the children. Then they have to eat it," she said.

Hand-outs

The 1-kilo rice bags were still distributed to the students so as not to disappoint the children's parents. Some parents interviewed by ABS-CBN News chose to accept the insect-infested rice bags because they were shy to turn away handouts.

"Hindi naman ho (namin kinain 'yong insekto). Tinanggal lang namin. Kasi tinatahipan po naman 'yon eh. [We didn't eat the insects. We just removed them. Anyway, the rice is winnowed]," said one female parent.

Thelma Santos, DepEd Assistant Secretary for Special Concerns, suspects the weevil infestation started at the NFA warehouse before delivery.

She said the department has already halted the distribution of contaminated rice. "Ang ginawa namin kanina, tinawagan namin 'yong NFA, at papalitan na ngayon. [What we did earlier was we called the NFA and they're going to replace the rice]," she said.

The "Food-for-School" program targets 2.7 million schoolchildren nationwide. Each child covered by the program will be given a kilo of rice every day for 6 months. Report by Atom Araullo, ABS-CBN News.