ANGELES CITY – Mayor Carmelo ‘Pogi’ Lazatin Jr. wants every child in the city to receive proper health management and nutrition benefits.
According to Mayor Lazatin, this is to build a stronger foundation to combat malnutrition and other nutritional deficiencies among children.
On October 13 and November 17, the Mayor personally led a feeding program for 200 kids in the Our Lady of Fatima Parish Church at Barangay Malabanias here, right after the mass.
A total of P8 million will be allotted to the feeding program for day care students in 2020, while P10 million will be alloted for programs for malnourished children. The data will be based on the regular Oplan Timbang of the City Nutrition Office.
This move, the Mayor said, will be funded under the Gender and Development (GAD) Office, to continuously prioritize the children’s educational and social welfare.
According to reports of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), “90% of brain development happens before the age of five. Help us raise awareness of early childhood development and put pressure on world leaders to make sure all young children have access to nutrition, health, learning, play and protection.”
It can be recalled that last July, during the first month of Mayor Lazatin’s administration, he appealed to the public to help him in his campaign to end kids’ nutritional deficiencies. Furthermore, he went house-to-house in 33 barangays to administer the Vitamin A supplementation of children.
For the Mayor, this is also in line with the dedication of President Rodrigo Duterte to provide a national feeding program for undernourished children in the country, in accordance with Republic Act 11037, or the “Masustansyang Pagkain para sa Batang Pilipino Act,” which aims to “afford every Filipino child of the right to proper healthcare and nutrition benefits.”
The law states that a supplemental feeding program for children attending day care centers aged 3 to 5 shall be conducted, as well as a school-based feeding program. Beneficiaries under this program must receive one fortified meal for a period of not less than 120 days in a year.
Meanwhile, a fortified meal, as defined by law, is a “meal with deliberately increased content of essential micronutrients so as to improve the nutritional quality of the food and provide the level of calories and protein as prescribed by the National Nutrition Council.”