CABARROGUIS, Quirino (PIA) - - The Department of the Interior and Local Government Regional Office No. 2 recently vowed to keep its door open to working hand-in-hand with the National Nutrition Council (NNC) Region 2 and other concerned government agencies in the promotion and advocacy of nutrition and all nutrition related events.

Maybelle Anog, division chief of DILG - Local Government Monitoring and Evaluation made the assurance in her message during the launching of the 48th Nutrition Month and Joint Regional and Provincial Launching Program which was held here recently.

“The theme, ‘New Normal na Nutrisyon, Sama-samang Gawan ng Solusyon,’ calls for a whole of nation effort to promote nutrition and to scale up nutrition intervention and services. It calls upon all of us, the stakeholders in the government to work together towards nutrition improvement as the country is gradually shifting to the so called new normal,” Anog said.

Anog further said the theme calls upon the decision makers to ensure that nutrition will be an integral part of the development agenda of the incoming administration.

“In a sense, new normal entails living with the covid-19 virus which signifies a transition to a better pandemic situation while carrying the lessons therefrom to prevent such health economic scars or crisis in the future and for us to be able to stand and get back on our feet as resiliency is the name of this survival game,” Anog stressed.

The DILG division chief expressed alarm over the malnutrition problems brought by the Covid-19 pandemic saying that malnutrition has increased exponentially because myriads of Filipinos have been hard-pressed.

 “Our country has suffered economic recession which has downscaled the resources and disrupted the nutrition programs and other relevant services for nutrition; worsen poverty situation, increased hunger incidence, and many more,” she said.

She further said while the Filipinos are still grappling with the covid-19 pandemic which has taken toll on their health and wellbeing, the situation behooves everyone to be more concern about the caring of health.

“Nutrition plays an indispensable role in building resilience as the Filipinos go in to a progressive paradigm shift from pandemic to endemic situation,” Anog said as she reiterated the DILG’s support in attaining a sustainable development goal to end hunger or achieve zero hunger, achieve food security, and also improve nutrition. (MDCT/TCB/PIA Quirino)