BARMM battles child malnutrition crisis as stunting remains stubbornly high on NewsLine Philippines - Building Information Highway for the Community
COTABATO CITY (July 29) — For Bangsamoro children, malnutrition is not simply a health problem. It is a symptom of deeper failures—poverty, displacement, insecurity, limited services and persistent misinformation—that continue to deprive many children of a healthy start in life.
The Bangsamoro government and its partners are now intensifying a multi-sector campaign to confront the crisis, but officials acknowledge that reducing child malnutrition will require more than another round of programs and pledges.
The urgency was underscored during the July 27-28 nutrition summit in Cotabato City, where health officials, local governments, national agencies, humanitarian organizations and development partners gathered to hammer out a more coordinated response.
The summit, themed “Strengthening Partnership and Accelerating Action Towards a Well-Nourished Bangsamoro,” brought together officials from the Ministry of Health-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (MOH-BARMM), local government units, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the Zuellig Family Foundation and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Representatives from BARMM’s five provinces and three cities also attended.
But behind the language of partnership and accelerated action is a troubling reality: too many Bangsamoro children are still growing up undernourished.
Four in 10 children stunted
The scale of the problem is reflected in the region’s own figures.
MOH-BARMM Minister Kadil Sinolinding Jr. said the former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao recorded a 42.5% stunting rate among children in 2015.
The rate fell to 33.6% in 2019—a significant improvement, but still alarmingly high.
The decline shows that government interventions can make a difference. But it also exposes the limits of fragmented and short-term responses.
“Our efforts to address, rip that problem from its bud, still need more technical and manpower and financial investments,” Sinolinding, a physician-ophthalmologist and member of the Bangsamoro Parliament, said.
The question now is whether the region can sustain the investments needed to bring the numbers down further—and prevent another generation of children from carrying the lifelong consequences of poor nutrition.
Conflict has a price—and children pay it
In BARMM, malnutrition cannot be separated from the region’s long history of conflict.
Local officials cited armed clashes involving the now-defunct Dawlah Islamiya and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte as among the factors that displaced vulnerable Moro families between 2015 and 2023.
Repeated displacement disrupts access to food, health care, sanitation and education. For children, the consequences can extend long after families return home.
In remote communities, peace and security problems also make it harder for health workers and other service providers to reach families who need help most.
This means the fight against malnutrition is also a fight against the conditions that produce it.
When misinformation competes with nutrition
Participants also identified another less visible barrier: beliefs and misinformation about food.
Some communities continue to hold superstitions about the supposed harmful effects of certain agricultural products, influencing what families eat and what they feed their children.
That makes nutrition education as important as food assistance.
But experts and officials face the harder task of translating scientific advice into practices that families can trust and sustain—especially in communities where poverty, limited market access and insecurity already constrain food choices.
The danger of another program without lasting change
Austere Panadero, president of the Zuellig Family Foundation, and experts from DOST and UNICEF joined BARMM health officials in discussions on how to improve the region’s response.
DOST supervising science research specialists Ma. Lilibeth Dasco and Eva Goyena, Zuellig Family Foundation representative Jennifer Nandu, MOH-BARMM Nutrition Division chief Celia Sagaral and Maguindanao Integrated Provincial Health Office chief Dr. Ariff Baguindali shared strategies during the summit.
Basilan provincial board member Dr. Nur Khan Istarul said the region needs sustained, continuing cooperation among government agencies, LGUs and other sectors to make meaningful progress.
Istarul, known as a “doctor to the barrio,” and Basilan Vice Gov. Hadjiman Salliman pledged support for BARMM’s nutrition campaign.
But coordination alone will not fill empty plates.
The region needs sustained funding, trained personnel, reliable nutrition services, food security interventions and programs that reach children in the most isolated communities—not just those who can easily access government facilities.
New commission, old challenge
The summit also rallied support for the newly established Bangsamoro Nutrition Commission, created through an enabling measure passed by the Bangsamoro Parliament on July 9.
The measure was jointly authored by Sinolinding and fellow regional lawmaker Amilbahar Mawallil.
The commission is expected to begin operations once its personnel structure is established, with funding from the BARMM government.
It could become an important mechanism for bringing together programs that have long been spread across different agencies and sectors.
But creating another institution will not, by itself, solve the problem.
The real test will be whether the commission can turn coordination into measurable improvements in children’s nutrition—particularly in conflict-affected, displaced and hard-to-reach communities.
For BARMM, the fight against malnutrition is ultimately a test of governance.
A child who is stunted today may carry the consequences for years. The region has already seen progress. What it needs now is the political will, money and sustained action to make that progress reach every child—not just the communities easiest to serve.
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BARMM battles child malnutrition crisis as stunting remains stubbornly high
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