The National Nutrition Council through the conduct of Monitoring and Evaluation of the Local Level Plan Implementation, coined as MELLPI launches yearly the Search for the Outstanding Local Government Units: Province. City, Municipality, Barangay and its volunteer worker – the Barangay Nutrition Scholar (BNS). The Search aims to assess the nutrition program performance of the LGUs and the BNSes, and recognize those with exemplary performance in the delivery of basic nutrition and related services in the 7 provinces of Central Luzon.

For 2015, the expanded Regional Nutrition Evaluation Team (RNET) of Central Luzon, from a 15-member Regional Nutrition Committee, now with 30 member-agencies at hand started its evaluation and validation visits on April 8, 2015 at Science City of Munoz and Cabanatuan City, both in Nueva Ecija. While the first province visited by the team on April 22-24, 2015 was Aurora Province covering the First-time Provincial Awardee – Municipality of Dilasag, which bagged the title 2015 Outstanding Municipality of Aurora Province and Municipality of Dinalungan, for having the Provincial Outstanding BNS – Barangay Abuleg, also groomed as the Model Barangay for PGN-Infant and Young Child Feeding Program.

The first leg of RNET including DSWD, DOST, PIA, DPWH, OCD, NCIP, DENR and NNC-RO headed by NPC Florinda V. Panlilio validated the initiatives of these LGUs in support to the city, municipal and barangay Nutrition Committees that eventually resulted to the sustained improvement of nutrition situation in the region. During the evaluation, a review of the LGU accomplishments, visits in the project sites and assessment of the changes in the nutritional status of children are undertaken. For the month of April, the cities of Meycauayan and San Jose Del Monte (Bulacan) and Balanga City (Bataan) will also be evaluated on April 28 and 30, respectively.