The Executive Order (EO) 138, or the Full Devolution of Certain Functions of the Executive Branch to Local Governments, means that some of the roles, services, and facilities of national government agencies pertaining to local infrastructures, health care, livelihood, agriculture, and social welfare will be transferred to the local government units (LGUs) along with budget allocation in-order to improve the locality's planning, investment programming, and budgeting linkages, as well as monitoring and evaluation systems.
The implementation of nutrition program for the upcoming year must be scaled along with the effectivity of EO 138. Thus, National Nutrition Council (NNC) XII conducted special meeting on and presented the Proposed Options for the Strengthening of the Local Government Unit (LGU) Nutrition Program Through the Establishment of a Nutrition Office and/or Hiring of LGU Personnel for Nutrition from the Increased National Tax Allocations Resulting from the Supreme Court Ruling on Mandanas-Garcia Ruling last July 26, 2021 via Zoom.
The activity drew participation from the 21 Local Nutrition Focal Points (LNFP) across the region. The said meeting aims to facilitate clarifications and inquiries from the LGU regarding EO 138 and to encourage the LGUs to advocate and support the recommendation of National Nutrition Council regarding strengthening of Nutrition program.
OIC-NPC Flores discussed the following significant topics: salient features of the executive order, the committee on devolvement, roles of LGU, proposed options for LGU and the position paper on hiring LGU personnel for nutrition and its rationale. Further, she also reiterated the proposed options for local nutrition offices and the qualifications standards for the proposed positions.
NNC XII encourages all the LGUs through their LNFP to formulate their local position paper to improve the nutrition program by creating a nutrition office/section/unit complemented with nutrition staff with the members of the Local Nutrition Committee's (LNC) approval and shall be presented at the meeting of the local development committee.
With the implementation of EO 138, NNC XII anticipates increased support for the nutrition program, resulting in more efficient and effective delivery of quality nutrition services in the LGU, hence improving the local nutrition situation. (NOIIUTLANG/OIC-NPC FLORES)
