Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Undersecretary Mae Fe Ancheta-Templa has been assigned by DSWD Sec. Judy M. Taguiwalo to lead the department’s efforts to help improve child nutrition in the ARMM.

Pres. Rodrigo Duterte earlier ordered the DSWD to put together a program on the same.

“I am taking the responsibility over the conceptualization and programming with other national agencies (which committed to participate in this development action). The action is a comprehensive, community-based, and culturally-responsive convergence of services. It takes into account the concrete situation of the Moro communities which have been challenging the state policies that perpetuate landlordism, warlordism, development aggression, and anti-Moro hysteria,” explained Usec. Ancheta-Templa.

She elaborated that the Moro people’s armed resistance remains a major consideration as impunity increases the chances of getting children exposed to cruelties, displacements and inadequate food nutrients if not taking three-full meals a day.

“Because of this, our program and campaign adopts a bio-psychosocial framework which deals with malnutrition beyond the children’s physical health as it looks into the breakdown of the support system in the families and communities. However, such breakdown represents a deeper problem-that failure of the Philippine state policies in pursuing the promotion and protection of the Moro people’s right to self-determination, ” she said.

“The ARMM children situation thus mirrors the entire society’s handling of land, agricultural production, jobs, and social services. Improving the nutritional status of children is our goal as we want to reduce their vulnerabilities to hunger, stunting and undernourishment,” she continued.

National agencies cooperating with DSWD in this case include DOH-National Nutrition Council, DOST-FNRI, DepEd, DA, DAR, DILG, CHED with their ARMM counterparts. It is worth to mention that the Bangsamoro people’s organizations are taking part in the programming- they coined the name of the program: BANGSAMORO UMPUNGAN SA NUTRISYON (BANGUn)!

Background of the Project

Under the Listahanan record of the DSWD, ARMM topped the list of poor provinces with 573, 446 identified poor households out of the 925, 957 assessed households. That is 11.2 percent higher than the rest of the regions in the country.

The poverty incidence among households in the ARMM rose to 53.4 percent in the first semester of 2015 from 46.9 percent in the same period in 2012. This means that 1 out of 2 families in ARMM had an income lower than the poverty threshold or the minimum income to meet the basic food and non-food necessities.

Poverty incidence is the proportion of individuals whose income cannot provide for the basic food and non-food requirements of the total number of individual members of the family.

The 2015 Household Food Insecurity Access Scale conducted by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI)-DOST shows that 21.9 percent of the Filipino households nationwide are severely food insecure, while 33.9 percent of Filipino households are food secure.

In ARMM, 44.5 percent households are severely food insecure, which means most of the households eat fewer meals a day, go to sleep hungry or even go a whole day and night without eating.

The 2016 Global Nutrition Report shows that the Philippines is among the top 50 countries with highest wasting (low weight-for-height) and stunting (low height-for-age) prevalence rates.
• 1 in 5 Filipino children below five years old is underweight (low weight-for-age)
• 1 in 3 Filipino children below five years old is stunted (low height-for-age)

Below are alarming facts from the “2015 Updating of Nutritional Status of Filipino Children and Other Populations Groups” conducted by Food and Nutrition Research Institute – Department of Science and Technology (FNRI-DOST) which show the prevalence rate of malnutrition in ARMM per age groups:

•For children <5 years old, underweight children comprises to 24.9 percent of the  total population of the age group, 45.2 percent for Stunting and 8.2 percent for Wasting.
•For 5-10 years old, there was 38.1 percent Underweight, 44 percent for Stunting and 6.3 percent for Wasting.
•For 10-19 years old, 44 percent of Stunting and 9.6 percent Wasting.

Hunger and malnutrition among children have health implications for each individual child, as well as economic cost to all of us. A total of 31,000 child deaths are linked with undernutrition, representing 45 percent of total child deaths. There are also 3.7 million additional episodes of undernutrition including diarrhea, acute respiratory infection and anemia.

Moreover, the cognitive development and educational performance of an undernourished child is at risk. According to the 2013 study jointly conducted by Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) -DOST and Save the Children, the combined costs of education and productivity losses associated with childhood undernutrition is approximately PhP 328 billion, which is equivalent to 2.84 percent of the 2013 Philippine GDP.

The ongoing armed conflict in ARMM further aggravated the health and economic costs of undernutrition among children. Hunger as a result of lack of access of their parents to means of livelihood and frequent evacuation secondary to armed conflict is detrimental to the children’s health and welfare.

Thus, President Rodrigo R. Duterte himself gave the directive for the DSWD to lead different government agencies in addressing the worsening hunger and malnutrition among children in ARMM. This Project contributes toward the overall goal of poverty alleviation in Mindanao.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES:

In general, the implementation of this Project in ARMM aims to improve the nutritional status of 0-12 years old children in the priority barangays, schools and evacuation camps who are identified as stunted (low height-for-age), wasted (low weight-for-height) and underweight (low weight-for-age) through a collaborative inter-agency approach engaging the parents of malnourished children, communities and the concerned local government unit (LGU)partners.

Specifically, this Project is directed to achieve the following specific objectives:

1. To engage the active participation of the children, parents, communities and concerned LGUs in the entire process of Project implementation and have them own this Project;
2. To harmonize the technical assistance and services of different government agencies in addressing hunger and malnutrition among children 0-12 years old in ARMM;
3. To ensure access of children to the culturally-appropriate indigenous foods available in the local communities; and
4. To reduce the number of stunted, wasted and underweight children (0-12 years old) by 70% after 180 days of Project Implementation in the identified priority barangays.

PROJECT BENEFICIARIES:

This Project shall cover 100% of the identified children aged 0-12 years who are stunted (low height-for-age), wasted (low weight-for-height) and underweight (low weight-for-age) in 2 phases. Fifty percent will be covered for the first six months; and another 50 percent in the 2nd phase, also for six months implementation. The project will be implemented in priority barangays of the following 5 municipalities in 2 provinces of ARMM:

1. Maguindanao : Mamasapano, Datu Salibo and Dau Piang
2. Sulu : Jolo and Patikul

PROJECT DURATION:

This Project will cover one year and three months duration beginning October 2016 until December 2017. Social preparations in the communities, actual project implementation,capacity-building and periodic monitoring and evaluation are covered in the entire project duration. ###