Funding for first 1,000 days flagged

ONLY a small portion of government funding for the health of children is set aside for their first 1,000 days, the Department of Health on Tuesday said.

“We found out that most of our government funds were actually more on the latter part of a child’s nutrition,” Health Secretary Teodoro J. Herbosa, fresh from a Cabinet meeting, said in a news briefing.

This means that the budget of the Department of Education for the school age feeding program and budget of the Social Welfare Department for preschool kids are bigger than the budget for the first 1,000 days of children, he explained.

“The emphasis should be on the first one thousand days which involve a pregnant mother,” he said, noting that the government should focus on boosting maternal nutrition, which will boost fetuses’ access to micronutrients such as iron and folic acid.

The government should also provide an enabling environment for mandatory initiation of breastfeeding “which actually helps the first six months of life.”

“And then when they go into supplemental feeding, continue to be able to feed good nutritious food up to the first 1,000 days,” Mr. Herbosa said.

He said the President wants the National Nutrition Council “to take the lead” in boosting children’s nutrition.

“We cannot depend on local government units alone. We need to help the LGUs so he’s ordering us to strengthen the National Nutrition Council.”

He said that during the meeting, Budget Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman proposed a convergence budgeting approach to health and nutrition, which has already been implemented for efforts in the face of climate change.

“It’s also been implemented for livelihood projects and for gender and development,” he said. “So, this will be the fourth one for the 2026 budget when we frame it, it will be convergence in nutrition.”

“Health and nutrition are actually closely linked.”

Mr. Herbosa said the Philippines is among countries in the East Asia Pacific Region with the highest prevalence of stunting or malnutrition.

“The Philippines is experiencing a triple burden of malnutrition — these include undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency and overnutrition or obesity,” he said.

“The consequences of this include low performance at school, economic cost due to mortality and productivity losses and increased infant mortality,” he added. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza