Implementation of Comprehensive Anti-Malnutrition Program sought

The chairperson of the House Committee on Women and Gender Equality is pushing for the implementation of a Comprehensive Anti-Malnutrition Program (CAMP) to boost the efforts of the government to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.

Rep. Linabelle Ruth Villarica (4th District, Bulacan) filed House Bill 3873 following results of the Sixth National Nutrition Survey conducted by the Food and Nutrition Research Institution (FNRI) in 2003, which showed that the government is lagging behind its target to halve the prevalence of underweight children under five years of age.

Villarica said one of the government’s Millennium Development Goals is to reduce the prevalence of underweight children less than five years of age between 1990 and 2015.  However, results of the survey showed the progress towards achieving the goal is behind schedule, Villarica said.

Quoting FNRI, Villarica said 27% or over three million children between 0-5 years old are underweight, 30% or close to 3.5 million are short for their age and 5.5% or over half a million are thin or wasted.

“Similarly, it was found that two out of three infants six months to less than one year of age and one out of two children one to less than two years of age were anemic and likely to suffer from long-term cognitive impairment,” Villarica said.

Villarica said the FNRI also discovered that 27% of pregnant women were nutritionally at risk of delivery low birth-weight babies and that among lactating women, 12% were chronically energy deficient.

On top of this, Villarica said the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in its website, cited protein-energy malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies as the leading nutritional problems in the Philippines.

Recently, the UN said 1.5 million children in areas ravaged by Typhoon Yolanda are at risk of malnutrition while close to 800,000 pregnant and nursing mothers need nutritional help.

In view of these, Villarica stressed the need for Congress to immediately approve her proposed measure to give the issue of malnutrition a special focus.

Under the bill to be known as The Malnutrition-Free Act of 2014, the National Nutrition Council (NNC) shall implement a comprehensive and sustainable program to address malnutrition in the country.

Covered by the CAMP are Filipinos who are nutritionally at risk, with focus on women of reproductive age, pregnant women, lactating mothers, particularly teenage mothers and all children aged zero to two years old that reside in nutritionally poor areas identified by the FNRI.

The CAMP shall be implemented in two phases, Villarica said.  The first phase shall be carried out for the first three years covering areas identified by FNRI as having the most nutritionally at risk population.

The second phase will be implemented in the succeeding three years covering fourth to sixth class municipalities.

During the first three years, the goal is to decrease the prevalence rate of underweight children from 0 to 5 years from 20.2 percent in 2011 to 13.6 percent in 2015 consistent with the target indicated in the Philippine Development Plan 2011-2016.

By the second phase, covering 2016 to 2018, the prevalence rate of underweight Filipino children from 0 to 5 years should be 10 percent.