PAGBABAGO
Dr. Florangel Rosario Braid
The red alert is up. Here is the situation today:
Child malnutrition in the country is one of the highest in the world, with one in three children below 5 years stunted. In 2018, at least 48.2 percent of infants aged 6-11 months had anemia due to poor feeding practices and inadequate food intake.
Atty. Alberto Muyot, CEO of “Save the Children PH,” said: Children, mostly those from low-income families, face the long-term and irreversible impact of stunting – the worst form of malnutrition due to prolonged hunger.
UNICEF notes: Every day, 95 children in the country die from malnutrition; 27 out of 1000 do not get past their 5th birthday.
The UN Network on Nutrition further noted that an estimated 10.5 million children under 5 in Asia suffer from wasting with 78 million children stunted in 2020.Social Weather Stations noted: In July 2020, an estimated 5.2 million Filipino families or roughly 30 million Filipinos, mostly children, reported experiencing involuntary hunger due to lack of food to eat once in the past three months.
A significant portion of stunted children means a considerable diminution in the succeeding generation’s overall performance and economic productivity.
Following the alarm sounded by several development agencies, child advocates, and surveys on hunger, HB 5279, Providing Framework for the Right to Adequate Food and Other Purposes was recently filed in this 18thCongress by Rep. Jose Christopher Belmonte. The bill, filed in 2016 as HB 7193 by Reps. Ibarra Gutierrez, Walden Bello, and Arlene Bag-ao, was approved at 3rd reading and transmitted to the Senate for action.
The bill intended to guarantee freedom from hunger and non-discrimination, ensures economic accessibility and physical accountability It guarantees that hunger will be reduced from the level current by 25 percent, and that in 10 years, a zero incidence of hunger will be achieved.
Indicators that goals will be achieved include assurance of development of ancestral lands, access by rural population to productive resources, percentage and share of budget for needed support services, and percentage of female-headed households or rural women with legal title to agricultural lands. It guarantees reach to public nutrition supplement programs by the marginalized and disadvantaged, and adequate coverage of school feeding programs.
That this bill is a critical priority is shown through the establishment of a Commission in Right to Adequate Food and shared responsibility for implementation among 17 government departments and agencies.
Earlier research had shown that rural women were effective mangers of agricultural resources. Thus, this bill ensures participation and access to legal title of agricultural lands by female-headed households or rural women.
This bill, as I stated in last week’s piece, was authored by a fellow trustee of the Justice Cecilia Munoz Palma Foundation (JCMPF), which for the past years had held legal forums on children’s rights. Another fellow trustee, Dr. Carmencita Reodica, our first female health secretary in 1996 during the presidency of Fidel Ramos, had been our ardent advocate in thisarea. While she does not discourage advocacy on school feeding, she said that we must first address the critical problem of utilization of our agricultural resources through responsive policies and programs.
Chit assumed top leadership of our health sector after a sterling performance in various roles in various public health offices during a turbulent time in DOH’s history. She came in the wake of investigations of financial transactions, resignations, suspension of services as well as several top DOH officials, and when public credibility and internal morale were at their lowest. In less than two years, Sec. Reodica regained the stability and restored DOH to its top position in public awareness and approval.
She moved the department towards being “people-based” in contrast to a disease or program-based approach to public health. Keeping the “life-cycle” in mind, she focused programs on specific target age and sectoral groups, such as very young children, adolescents, and women. This approach, she said, more readily lends itself to integration of services as it is from the point of view of the largest clientele and not the provider of services. Her ultimate vision was the attainment of healthy and productive individuals and families. Among programs that she initiated were the “Early Childhood Development,” a multi-agency collaborative effort with the Departments of Social Welfare and Education, the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness, and the life-cycle planning approach.
The lesson learned over the years is that “people-based” or “human-rights approach” is the only viable alternative in addressing current problems, whether hunger, malnutrition, and COVID-19, even what is perceived as endemic – widespread corruption that had sapped the vitality of national development.
My e-mail, [email protected]