Pangasinan, the third biggest province in the whole Philippine Archipelago and the largest in Region I, is comprised of 44 municipalities, 4 cities (Dagupan, San Carlos, Urdaneta and Alaminos) and 1,364 barangays. It has six (6) Congressional Districts with Lingayen as the Provincial Capital.

The province derived its name from the local dialect “Panag-asinan” which means “where salt is made” owing to the rich and fine salt beds which was the major industry and the prime source of livelihood for the province’s coastal towns.

Local Nutrition Action Plan (LNAP) of the province is presented during the 1st quarter regular meetings of the Provincial Nutrition Committee, C/Municipal Nutrition Action Officers (MNAOs) and Provincial Barangay Nutrition Scholars Municipal Federation Presidents to give them direction towards the provincial priority nutrition interventions.

The Provincial Nutrition Committee members convened regularly to strongly collaborate the different nutrition specific and nutrition sensitive programs aimed towards the improvement of nutritional status of pre-schoolers, schoolers, pregnant mothers and to prevent micronutrient deficiencies.

Among the nutrition interventions which were implemented viz Facilitate conduct of complementary and dietary supplementary feeding, provincial support for the ECCD First 1000 days program – provision of micronutrients to priority municipalities with high malnutrition rate of pre-schoolers and provision of ferrous sulfate syrup, multivitamins with zinc/complementary foods, Dietary Supplementation for pregnant mothers, assist in the conduct of Healthy Lifestyle program for provincial employees, conduct of Buntis check-up tied up with nutrition and health advocacy like lecture on the First One Thousand Days program, Ten (10) Kumainments/Pinggang Pinoy. Also conducted activities on livelihood trainings sustained food security thru distribution of farm ready vegetable seedlings/fruit bearing trees, Monitoring of Food Sanitation and Safety, Adolescent Health and Nutrition Development.

Along the provincial nutrition programs, projects and activities, City and Municipal LGUs (47 LGUs) also have their functional nutrition committees in the implementation of their nutrition interventions to reduce their malnutrition rate, apparently with the support of their Barangay Nutrition Scholars (BNS) and Barangay Health Workers (BHW).

Provision of Annual Amelioration Pay to all volunteer workers especially to BNS and BHWs which served as their incentive from the provincial government.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the PNC members thru the Provincial Nutrition Evaluation Team (PNET) were able to conduct MELLPI Pro onsite to LGUs, BNS and to MNAOs. As such, they were recognized during the LGU Scorecard Awarding Ceremony/Health Summit thru provision of plaque/certificate of recognition and cash awards.

Indeed, with sustained and strong collaborative efforts of the PNC members with the Municipal Nutrition Committee (MNC) up to the Barangay Nutrition Committee (BNC) members, these showed a greater impact in the effective and efficient implementation of nutrition interventions thus a significant decline of malnutrition rate of underweight, wasting, stunting, overweight and obese for preschoolers’ were achieved.

By: Provincial Nutrition Committee of the Province of Pangasinan