A P10-billion program to address the malnutrition problem of the country was launched by President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos, Jr. was his message during the launching of the Philippine Multi-sectoral Nutrition Project (PMNP) held at the Manila Hotel recently.

PBBM believes that a well-nourished and healthy citizenry plays a significant role in economic development, resonates former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s oft-repeated statement that “science and technology hold the key to the nation’s economic development”

He (Marcos), was also quoted sternly warning “against the insidiousness of the malnutrition problem” in the Philippines. Accordingly, with the PMNP adopting a multi-sectoral community participatory approach where services go directly to the Local Government Units (LGUs), especially those in need of interventions, including health and nutrition.

The PMNP fund, loaned from the World Bank, has been earmarked to intervene some275 municipalities until 2025, the last year of his term as president. Of these, 40 municipalities are located in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMN). The same program expects to benefit about 977,626 stunted children.

As a reward, the government is looking at incentivizing LGUs found to have successfully implemented the PMNP project/s. PBBM has urged concerned LGUs to judiciously use the PMNP funds, Congress to continue crafting measures that will help eradicate malnutrition while uplifting the standards of the primary health care and nutrition in the Philippines. And, improve its 5th ranked country in the East Asian and Pacific Region identified with the highest stunting prevalence and for being one of 10 countries with the number of stunted children in the world statistics.

MY COMMENT:

Stunting (among humans) is aggravated when nutrition and health suffer due to the low supply of nutritious food and the insufficiency of existing primary health care program. This situation places the Departments of Agriculture and Health on the spot. Records show how Congress has crafted and passed laws to improve the health services program and enhance agricultural crop production to meet the needs of JUAN DE LA CRUZ’s FAMILIES. Netizens point ‘accusing fingers’ to the branch of government on their level of implementation and monitoring of the health and food policies of the country.
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WHAT a very good deal Christ is giving us! When Peter told him, “We have given up everything and followed you,” Christ immediately reassured him—and us—“Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers…” (Mk 10,28-30).

It’s good that we keep these words very much in mind so that we can protect ourselves from our strong tendency to get attached to the things of this world, making them irresistible instruments for self-indulgence instead of being powerful instruments of love for God and for everybody else.

In today’s digital world where we are provided with tremendous facilities and advantages, let’s see to it that everytime we use them, we have the proper intention. And that is none other than to love and glorify God and to help and serve the others. We need to have the relevant practices that would help us keep that proper intention.

The advances and progress in our sciences and technologies should challenge us to develop the attitudes and practices proper of a person who needs to be in constant relation with others, let alone, of a child of God who needs to always be with God.

We cannot deny that nowadays we are seeing a lot of people sinking in their self-indulgence, completely deceived by the pleasures these powerful facilities and technologies give them, not knowing that these pleasures have no other purpose than to trap them in their own world and bubble, and to cause cases of obsessions and addictions, etc.

We need to have a massive campaign to educate everyone on how to properly use these new technologies. This has to start in the families where the little children should be taught how to use them. It’s not to prevent them from using these tools, but rather to instill in them the proper attitude and practices.

Everyone should be taught that these new technologies should be used primarily and constantly to give glory to God and to help others. The pleasures, fulfillment and satisfaction we can derive from these tools should be the effect, first of all, of such love for God and for others. Otherwise, these pleasures can only turn into sweet poison for us.

Definitely, a considerable amount of sacrifice and self-denial would be involved here. But if things are also taught properly, everyone should be made to see that whatever sacrifice and self-denial would be involved would only lead to a certain joy that is most proper to us. The teaching method should be such that it is always done in a positive, constructive and attractive way, instead of in a negative, off-putting way.

This is a big challenge since many young people nowadays are easily turned off whenever some sacrifice would be involved. Thus, a lot of patience and creativity in teaching is a must. And more than just giving classes and modules, to carry out this duty of teaching people about the proper use of the new technologies undeniably requires accompaniment.
We have to know how to deal with the danger of self-indulgence, self-absorption and self-centeredness that these new technologies can occasion. Christian detachment has to be taught and lived properly.

People wonder why we are lacking in rice supply despite our country being home of top agricultural universities and agricultural professionals and scientists. One factor being considered for this national malady is the depletion of arable lands that are now being converted to other uses. There are vast hectares of rice fields being converted to commercial, industrial and residential uses, not to mention recreational, the kind that are used for golf courses.

We certainly are not wanting in sports and recreation suited to our needs. There are lots of sports we can indulge in that are not beyond our means to enjoy. Unfortunately, the elite and powerful in our society are lured to expensive sports like golf that is played by rich and famous people in other countries. Those who are into such sport may argue that the game is not too costly and is in fact affordable to them. But more than the cost of playing the game is the greater cost of sacrificing tracts of land that could be used to for producing food that could feed the population.

A different view looks at the growing population as cause for the inadequacy of rice. But is not every man given the capability to be productive even just to answer for his daily needs? No matter the population as long as it is made productive to produce its basic needs, hunger would not be a problem. It is when the greater number remains unproductive and dependent on a small sector of working and productive.

But how can we expect the population to become a productive workforce when it is confined in fixated social inequities that kills the motivation and vigor to produce goods, particularly through farming. We have seen the cruel inequities that our farmers are made as unwilling victims of. The man who toils to produce food is never given the opportunity to rise above the muddy soil. They fall victims to unjust wages that could not even meet the basic needs of the family. These sector of the population who labor for the food that the entire population consume are luckless in getting government support, that is why they fall victims to usurious loans from capitalists who rake in the greater earnings.

The situation is truly discouraging and government is continually missing to address the problem. Its recent realization about the lack of farmlands for food production ought to have been discovered long ago. While it takes what it may deem as appropriate steps to increase farm areas, partly by halting the counterproductive conversion of agricultural lands to other uses. The decrease of farmlands continues and the diminishing farmhands is getting worse as well.

Our country had long been engaged in labor exportation and our young working population being lured into high-paying foreign jobs in the fields of technology, construction, nursing and medicine. The exodus of our skilled and industrious workforce will surely cause a lack of people who will till the soil. The low and unjust wages and the exploited situation that our farmers suffer from is a great push that drives our people away from the bondage of the soil. Even with adequate farmlands, we may not have enough farmhands to produce the food that we need in order to live.
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