In what the Parents-Teachers and Community Associations (PTCA) in the city described as a perfect package of intervention from the Braganza administration that addresses so many problems, the launching of Phase II of the City Expanded Feeding Cum Livelihood Assistance Program (CEFCLAP) here in Lucap Elementary School yesterday is indeed a good reason for more than 19,000 school children in the city as well as their parents to be very happy once again.
“Today, we would like to reveal the summary of benefits that were gained and being enjoyed by our barangay from CEFCLAP,” said Claro Bacay, Lucap PTCA president during the program which was well attended by various stakeholders.
“And we are expecting other elementary schools and their pupils reaping the same advantages from this noble program,” he added, who spoke not only in behalf of their association but also other PTCAs in the city.
Significant impacts
Bacay said the program visibly improved the health condition of the school children in their barangay.
They noticed that the children, after having gained the needed nutrients from their three times a week hot lunch, showed signs of dynamism in class.
It was also observed that most children now are not prone to illnesses, and can easily recover from sickness.
“This means our children will no longer miss their classes and that they could fully focus on their learning inside the classroom,” said the incumbent barangay councilman.
“(Secondly), this program is of great help to the whole family,” complemented Crisencia Bacolcol, another council member, who represented the barangay chairman.
“With this nutritious lunch, our parents could save around P 20-30 a day from food and fare which could be spent on other useful things,” she continued.
The third benefit is that the parents’ understanding on good nutrition and health has improved a lot since the program was implemented last year.
Bacay noted that most parents now knew that the best source of nutritious food for their children could be found right on their backyards.
He said many parents produces their own veggies and high value crops like kangkong, pechay, squash, malunggay, and monggo.
Another significant impact of the feeding program to its direct beneficiaries is that it increases the income of the family particularly those who engaged in backyard gardening.
The program also strengthened the friendship and unity among the parents who happily work together to prepare and serve meals for their children.
By being visible in the school almost every day, it was learned that teachers could easily approach the parents to discuss important issues regarding the school as well as in addressing some of the problems of the children .
“(And because of these benefits to our community) we assure anew to our beloved Mayor Hernani A. Braganza our full support to his feeding program and all other worthy programs of the city government for our children and the barangays,” Bacay further quipped.
“We are indeed blessed for having a good leader, a hardworking, caring father of the city. We thank God for giving us Mayor Hernani A. Braganza who unceasingly works for the common good of his constituents through the best programs his administration have conceived and implemented."
Mrs. Sylvia Godoy, the school principal, likewise extended her sincerest gratitude to the vibrant mayor for all his wonderful gifts to the city’s youth such as this feeding program.
She also thanked the Alaminos City Division, the city council and the barangay officials for supporting the programs of the city government.
Best Practice
For Alaminos City Division (ACD), it knows for a fact that education and health are interrelated.
“We know pretty well that academic performance of the pupils and instructional outcomes are determined by the quality of health of the school children,” said Wilfredo Sindayen, education supervisor for English.
“For we believe, malnourished and unhealthy children cannot develop their full potentials which may result to the high drop-out rate and low academic performance,” added Sindayen, who represented Dr. Oscar C. Tadeo, OIC Schools Division Superintendent, who is on an official travel.
In the Philippines, the health status of public school pupils is alarmingly poor as stated in DepEd Order No. 65, S-2009.
Dental cavities, infectious diseases that include respiratory, diarrheas and parasitic worm infections and deficiencies of important nutrients affect the school children.
This leads to the poor nutrition and health among the school children which definitely have an adverse effect on their learning.
Fortunately, this is not the case in Alaminos City under the able leadership of Mayor Hernani A. Braganza.
Sindayen then expressed the Alaminos City Division’s profoundest thanks to the city chief executive for his genuine concern and love to the school children as evidenced by his worthy programs like the CEFCLAP.
The division supervisor said he even presented CEFCLAP as Best Practice of the city at the National Assembly of Bridging Leaders in Cebu last December.
Attendees of said summit raved about the city’s unique feeding program.
Then came the good news. The City Division became one of the Top 20 performing divisions in the entire country in terms of participation rate, fight against drop-out rate and in effort in raising achievement rate.
In the city division, statistic showed that its participation rate is 99.69%, a completion rate of 90.08%, and promotion rate of 97.98%.
“Comparably, these numbers are better than those of other divisions in the region and in the country as well,” Sindayen pointed out.
“There are more than 200 divisions entire the country and we are number 11 in terms of these parameters,” he added.
“And our city division attributes this to the city government’s expanded feeding program,” he stressed.
“We believe that this initiative is the most cost-effective, evidenced-based preventive intervention to improve the health of our school children in the public schools, thereby, improving their academic performance.”
Feeding ‘em all
It could be recalled that CEFCLAP was an offshoot of the successful Education Summit in 2005 spearheaded by the city government.
“The said summit was an eye-opener to all of us,” said Dr. Ma. Victoria O. Carambas, city health officer.
“It was during said meeting when all the stakeholders involved decided to take a common and giant step to address the identified problems of our schools and students,” she said.
These problems include high incidence of malnutrition, low participation rate and poor performance of school children in the field of science and mathematics.
Braganza then instructed the City Health Office (CHO) to craft a program and the latter came up with this feeding program.
In 2005, Alaminos was said to be one of cities in region 1 with a very high malnutrition rate prompting the city government implement to the program.
“We feed only the malnourished children and made it a point to reduce our malnutrition rate by at least 5% every year,” said Carambas.
“And we did it in 2006, she added. Our malnutrition rate was just 17% and we have proven that our feeding program really works.”
Incidentally, reports coming from city division revealed that the performance of the school children had also improved.
This fueled the city government’s enthusiasm to continue the program up to 2007.
The following year, Mayor Braganza decided to review and design the program. This, in response to the growing clamor of the parents that the program should not be confined to malnourished children alone but rather benefit all the school children.
The challenge was indeed overwhelming but the Braganza administration believed that feeding more than 19,000 school children is the right thing to do and is doable.
So on July 2008, CEFCLAP was launched in Alos Elementary School and the Alaminos was the first city or municipality in the entire region 1 to feed all school children with the help of the parents, barangay councils and health workers, teachers and concerned departments in the city government.
City councilor Constante Carasi said the city council fully backed the said program of the mayor last year because it benefits not just the children or academe but the entire community as well.
“We believe on the objectives of our feeding program and we will definitely continue to support it to achieve zero malnutrition and at the raise the level of education in our city,” added the SP Committee chairman on Health and Sanitation.
Community involvement
To increase community involvement in schools, particularly on the feeding program, the city government included the livelihood assistance component.
Here, parents were trained by the city to plant vegetables, venture in livestock raising and bangus deboning with the city government as the direct market.
As a result of this livelihood program, the parents are earning extra income for the whole family, said Arceli Talania, OIC city agriculturist, while their children are getting the right nutrition from the food they are preparing and serving.
More so, dependence on government dole-outs is reduced since the whole community is now behind the program, she added.
Talania said there are more than 300 farmer-parents that participated in the feeding program.
“We are expecting more of our citymates to get involved in backyard gardening to supply our feeding program for six straight weeks with organically grown veggies," she added.
The acting city agriculturist explained that her office will continue to provide seedlings to the farmers at a very affordable cost, the proceeds of which will be used, to buy seedling for future feeding programs.
“We have already seen the net effect of this livelihood component of our feeding program to our parents and our school children,” she said.
“With our concerted efforts, we hope that it transcends our feeding program as we aim for another goal which is for our city to achieve food security or self-sufficiency in vegetables in the future.”
United Alaminians
In the two-hour program that includes testimonies, speeches, skits and other intermission numbers, Mayor Braganza said the message of the day is very clear: “There can be development if we embrace changes or reforms.”
“We cannot do the job in the city alone,” said the hardworking mayor of expanded feeding program which is one of the components of his “Bright Child Program”.
“We need your support. Let’s help one another in this laudable endeavor.”
Braganza noted that nothing is impossible if Alaminians continue on believing that they can do so many things with the aid of the Lord Almighty.He said if they succeeded and be able to sustain this program it is not because of him.
Or because the city council provided funds for it and the barangay councils helped in its implementation.
“It’s because the Alaminos City Division, parents, our teachers, barangay officials non-teaching personnel and barangay health workers worked as one big family to realize the lofty goals of CEFCLAP which is one of the components of our Bright Child Program,” added the mayor.
He also said that it’s the city government that is extending its utmost gratitude to the parents, barangay councils and the schools and not the other way around.
“For without your full support, this program will never be realized and sustained.”
The mayor noted that the city’s feeding program now not only addresses the health concerns but also the quality of education in the city’s public schools.
He said during the first Education Summit held in the city, Alaminos City Division reported that out of the 13 divisions in the region, Alaminos is at the rock-bottom.
“In a span of 4 years, our city division is now number 6 in region 1 and ranked 11th in the entire country in terms of performance.With this remarkable development, as parents, we’re no longer afraid to entrust the future of our child to our city division,” said the mayor.
“We are very certain that they will not just benefit from our city’s feeding program. Our children will get the quality education they deserve from their second parents for them to have a better future. But as Alaminians, we can do better," stressed the former two-term congressman.
"I do believe that we can do more and become the best if we continue to be united and helping one another. We can solve every problem that come our away.” Citing other city government interventions like all public schools with access to wireless internet, putting up of Pangasinan State University campus in the city, expanded scholarship program and sports development program for the city’s youth and establishment of day care centers in the barangay, Braganza is optimistic that the city is on the right track as far as producing many bright children in the city is concerned. (CIO)