BULUAN, Maguindanao—The province is embarking on a model cycle of food production to boost children’s nutrition in all Maguindanao’s 36 towns, amid frequent incidents of families displaced by armed conflict.
Eeman Aljani, head of the Maguindanao governor’s office information staff, said programs designed to address malnutrition concerns included model activities for both home- and school-based food sufficiency campaign.
Local chief executives were tasked to promote production of nutritious foods through sustained dialogue with producers like bakeries, and possibly by forging partnership with the local business sector on operating bakeries, Aljani said.
He said production subsidy in terms of improving on ingredients for enhanced energy contents of foods sold to schoolchildren formed part of efforts to sustain nutrition programs, beyond the usual feeding activities.
Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu said LGUs would have to engage the private sector more frequently on improving food nutrition for children as their way through promoting their constitutional rights.
Mangudadatu said some mayors were even contemplating to “put up bakery to help produce high-energy bread for children,” and that he had advised them to be cautious of the “elements of conflict-of-interest in law” for public officials, citing his background as a law student.
But the legal department of the province apparently finds the plan perfectly for the province to partner with any private organization on production of nutritious breads “in the interest of public service of upholding the constitutional and lawful rights and welfare of the children and youth.”
Aljani said the governor believed that school- and home-based sufficiency in food nutrition would help keep children physically fit and off illnesses caused by malnutrition.
