Internal Quality Audit (IQA) has been intentionally done biannually by National Nutrition Council (NNC) Philippines-IQA team to all NNC regional offices. NNC endeavors to continually improve the quality management system to satisfy the needs and expectations of its clients- NNC Quality Policy.
NNC regional office VIII recently was audited by the IQA team from NNC Central office last January 25-27, 2017. For the last quarter of 2016 it was moved twice and finally steered up on January 2017. Auditing was initially a big word for the newly hired staffs, not knowing what exactly are the expected pacing of the activity and the feelings of uncertainty whether you can correctly answer the questions or not, give the right evidences or not. Nevertheless, when the auditors arrived the atmosphere turned to a light-spirited aura as Mr. Serapio D. Camarines led the team together with Mr. Armando Manglicmot and Ms. Maybelle Aspeli.  They explained that an audit was conducted primarily to determine the adequacy and effectiveness of the Quality Management System (QMS) documentation and implementation of NNC seven core processes (policy analysis, policy formulation, nutrition planning, nutrition program formulation, public information, and communication, monitoring and evaluation, and capacity building). Documentation has always been observed as a challenge from the grass root workers in the LGU to the upper levels for it requires diligence and skills to timely document any activity related to the program. Secondly, an audit is done to determine the adequacy and effectiveness of the QMS documentation and implementation of support services such as records and documentation management, procurement of goods and services, and financial resources management; and management processes. Tertiarily, an audit was conducted to determine areas for improvement. There are processes that the staffs may overlooked and neglected but the auditors came to re-align the right system on how things must be done. It is truly a gain of knowledge and wisdom, and a loss of derailed habits. Part of which is to verify corrective actions undertaken by the auditee on the non-conformities and areas for improvement which were the findings in previous audit. Lastly, an audit was conducted to determine the readiness of the NNC regional office VIII for external audit. The goal is to be ISO 9001-2008 certified, which spotlights NNC as an organization with quality management. It means that NNC is meeting customer satisfaction by meeting the customer and regulatory requirements. This could mean temporary loss of comfort while meeting the requirements but the gain exceeds the loss when improvement and order is at hand.