By: Benjie De Yro

By July 1 this year, new players will be fielded in the game of good governance. As to whether they will win or lose will depend on how they perceived their roles to be.

Good governance as defined by the World Bank is the manner it is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development while governance are the traditions and institutions by which an authority in a country is exercised.

On top of all these visions and missions of local government units in the country is the basic of all basics in governance; health. Ergo, nutrition.

Nobel Peace Prize winner and former South African President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela said ‘all governments are seeking effective and sustainable means to implement good nutrition’.

Without good nutrition, a fundamental right, the mind and body cannot function well. If that happens, the foundation of economic, social and cultural life is undermined.

Filipinos therefore are luckier than the rest of the developing world. As early as 1974, the country has instituted a nutrition program which aimed to end all forms of malnutrition thru the National Nutrition Council.

The National Nutrition Council in Region credits the men and women and local government units for the sustainable implementation of the various nutrition plans, programs and projects of the past and present administration.

“They have always been there for us, for the people in all nutrition advocacies,” Maria Gisela Lonzaga, regional nutrition coordinator, said.

Such good governance in Cagayan Valley among LGUs and assisted by a strong and infuential multi sectoral mechanism netted not one or two or three but numerous awards year in and year out and decades after decades.

The     LGUs, to be able to deliver good nutrition should have the knowledge, capacity and resources plus politics and governance.

“We are bent to fight malnutrition,” Lonzaga added.

Worldwide, nutrition has always been a technical, logistical, political and social issue. These issues will have to be dealt with by the country’s newly elected officials without turning back.

Health gurus have said the recognition of the vital importance of good governance has sparked  serious attention to research.

Love and marriage, horse and carriage? Add good governance and nutrition, useless each without the other.###