DOH

Senate Bill No. 694: Pagkaing Pinoy Para Sa Batang Pinoy Act

“You cannot feed the mind on an empty stomach.” This is a truth that millions of Filipinos know and feel all too well. Every day, millions of Filipino children trek to school, underfed and undernourished, yet expected to fully absorb the lessons of the day.

In a study called “The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012”, conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a total of 16 million Filipinos were considered undernourished 2010 to 2012, even as the number of chronically undernourished people dropped in all other Southeast Asian countries. Despite our growing economy, there are more underfed people in the Philippines today than there were two decades ago.

Meanwhile, another recent study on “the role of early childhood nourishment and health in connection with human capital accumulation”, published by Dartmouth University in 2012, revealed that the long-term detrimental effects of childhood hunger have a greater impact on school children than the effects of substandard schooling, infrastructure, classrooms, and textbooks.

This is perhaps one of the main reasons why Filipino children continue to lag behind our Asian neighbors in standardized tests. How can we expect them to do well in school when we have not given their brains the proper nourishment and fuel for the tasks that lie ahead of them?

Thus, the proposed “Pagkaing Pinoy para sa Batang Pinoy” bill seeks to alleviate childhood malnutrition in the Philippines through a feeding program for infants, public kindergarten and elementary school children. It will promote the health of children who are most in need, by providing regular and free access to nutritious food within a safe and clean school and community environment.

The benefits of the bill do not end there. To enhance the social value of this proposed measure, the feeding program will utilize, when possible and available, locally- sourced and locally-produced food products in order also to support local farmers and farming communities, and thus provide direct support to local agricultural communities. By providing a regular market for the products of local farmers and small entrepreneurs, this feeding program will help address not only child malnutrition but also poverty in the countryside.

This bill will entail partnerships with the Department of Agriculture (DA), the Department of Health (DOH), the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the Department of Education (DepEd), and local government units.


PDFicon DOWNLOAD SBN 694

Sen. Bam lauds NHA, DOH for settling PCMC land dispute

All’s well that ends well.

 Senator Bam Aquino lauded the Department of Health and the National Housing Authority for settling their dispute over the land presently occupied by the Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC).

“We would like to thank Secretary Janette Garin of the DOH and NHA administrator Chito Cruz for working together and coming up with a solution,” Aquino said during the hearing of the Senate Committee on Health on the land dispute.

“Officials and employees of PCMC have nothing to worry because the land that they’ve been occupying for decades will finally be theirs,” added Aquino.

During the hearing, the DOH and the NHA informed the committee that they will sign a memorandum of agreement to settle the ownership dispute.

Under the MOA, the DOH will pay NHA an initial P500 million from its 2015 budget for the land. The remaining P400 million will be paid from the agency’s 2016 budget.

The NHA, for its part, will convey the title of the land occupied by the PCMC to the DOH. The housing agency also requested the DOH to implement the 2003 valuation of the land.

“This is an early Christmas gift to the thousands of Filipino children who enjoy free and quality medical service from PCMC,” Aquino added.

Also, Aquino also revealed that the PCMC will receive a total budget of P1.226 billion, P500 million of which will be allocated for the payment of the land.

Aquino said P400 million will be used for the upgrading of the hospital building and P326 million for new equipment and new hospital wing.

Implement Land Swap to Retain Children’s Hospital – Sen. Bam

Senator Bam Aquino urged the National Housing Authority (NHA) to implement the land swap with the Department of Health (DOH) to resolve the ownership issue on the property occupied by the Philippine Children Medical Center (PCMC).

In 1992, the DOH agreed to swap its 5.9-hectare Cebu property for NHA’s Quezon City 6.4-hectare land where the PCMC currently stands.

However, Aquino said the agreement was realized only on one side because the NHA obtained and distributed the Cebu property through socialized housing while ownership of the Quezon City land was not transferred to the DOH.

“You already have the Cebu property. Would you agree to do a valuation and do the swap now?” Aquino told NHA officials, led by general manager Chito Cruz, during the hearing of the Senate Committee on Health on the issue.

Aquino also disputed NHA’s claim that the agency was just instructed by then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to implement the socialized housing project in Cebu.

“When you disposed of that land to your constituents, you weren’t doing it for DOH. You were doing it as your land,” Aquino emphasized.

The senator also said that even President Arroyo’s 2001 memorandum acknowledged the property swap between the DOH and the NHA.

Cruz said the NHA is willing to convey the property to the DOH only if the Department of Justice (DOJ) declares that there is a consummated swap through a legal opinion.

Aquino also got a commitment from the DOJ to resolve the legal side of the issue by next month.

“Let’s make this an early Christmas gift, not just for officials and employees of PCMC, but to all poor Filipino children who enjoy quality free health services,” the senator said.

Earlier, Aquino filed Senate Resolution 266 calling on concerned government agencies to work collaboratively to resolve the PCMC issue.

“Let us set aside other issues and think of the welfare of thousands of poor Filipinos who rely on PCMC for their children’s health,” the senator added.

 

Scroll to top