1-Pacman Party-list Rep. Mikee Romero (Facebook)

The 1-Pacman Party-list Rep. Mikee Romero-led House Committee on Poverty Alleviation will launch a summit on child malnutrition and stunting on Monday, July 24, the same day of the opening of the second regular session.

“We want to address these interconnected problems, along with hunger and poverty, and recommend solutions. We intend to give them top priority,” committee chairman Romero said in a statement Saturday, July 22.

According to him, proper nutrition has a big and long-lasting impact on child growth and health, and even on budget allocation and national development.

“If we have a large number of malnourished children, that would require a bigger budgetary appropriation for healthcare and health facilities, depriving other social services like education and infrastructure of much-needed funding,” said the former House deputy speaker.

Malnutrition and child stunting also hinder national development and competitiveness, especially in the digital age, he stressed.

The House panel intends to invite all concerned government agencies starting with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and Department of Health (DOH), private sector groups, including the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP), and other stakeholders.

“We want to come up with a holistic approach to solving malnutrition and child development stunting, and of course to poverty, which is the underlying problem,” he said.

The MAP recently urged the government to put these problems on top of the national agenda.

“Of course, these are among the top priorities of both the executive and legislative branches of our government. The food stamps program of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. aims to ease hunger and malnutrition among our poor children and population,” Romero said.

The 1-Pacman representative recently filed a bill that seeks to institutionalize the government’s food stamps program. He suggested the use of tap cards that contain P5,000 in food credits.

Romero said a complementary solution to hunger and malnutrition would be to increase farm and food production.

“Our farming sector is located mostly in rural communities, where a large part of our poor population is situated. Boosting agricultural harvest will create job and income opportunities, and will certainly mitigate hunger and malnutrition,” he said.

In appealing to the government to put malnutrition and child stunting on top of its agenda, the MAP said this “will ensure that concrete measures will be taken, sufficient funds will be earmarked, and actions will be cascaded from the national to the community level.”

The group said the Philippines ranks fifth among countries in East Asia and the Pacific with the highest prevalence of child stunting.