Establishment of a school-based feeding program in Palawan pushed

• Source: http://palawan-news.com/establishment-school-based-feeding-program-palawan-pushed/
• Thursday, December 15, 2016

By Catherine Santos

As a bid to address the malnutrition problem in Palawan, Board Member Eduardo Modesto Rodriguez, in today’s session of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan, December 13, proposed a legislation enjoining all local government units to establish a school-based feeding program in the province.

In his sponsorship speech, the legislator emphasized that Palawan is still among the provinces in the MIMAROPA region with high malnutrition cases, despite all the effort of the provincial government to combat the said problem. Rodriguez particularly called for municipalities with high malnutrition prevalence rates to respond to his proposal.

A suspension of the House Rules for the immediate approval of Rodriguez’ proposal was initially floated, but Board Member Ola suggested that instead of suspending the said rules the issue should be thoroughly discussed first at the committee level.

Further, according to Ola, it is better to invite first personnel from the Provincial Health Office (PHO) to know the effectiveness of programs implemented to address the problem. The legislator also added that doing so will help in assessing what further support the legislative body may extend to the PHO.

As of press time, the matter is now being studied under the Committee on Health.