Send one nutrition worker per barangay, Legarda urges

Seeing a need to address malnutrition at the grassroots level, Senator Loren Legarda filed a bill seeking the deployment of a nutrition worker to each barangay. In a statement, Legarda said she filed Senate Bill No. 9 to update Presidential Decree 1569 and create the position of the “barangay nutrition worker" to deliver nutrition and other related services. "They (barangay nutrition workers) can educate the Filipino people in each and every barangay how to eat and live right. Promoting a healthy citizenry will go a long way towards the country's economic and social development," she said. She cited data from the Food and Nutrition Research Institute which says that four million Filipino children are still malnourished. On the other hand, she said that undernutrition affects 28.4 percent of pregnant women. “The importance of adequate maternal nutrition and adequate intake of proper food and nutrients cannot be stressed enough. This is where our barangay nutrition workers come in," she said. Under Senate Bill No. 9, Legarda said a barangay nutrition worker must be: