Bgy 4-11 and the new ‘puede na’

For the longest time, Pinoy comedians as well as street clowns or punks have used the term “Barangay 4-11” as a joke and derogatory term, referring to the great majority of Filipinos who on average would be 4 feet 11 inches in height.

It might all be just good clean fun, but for a growing number of health professionals as well as sociologists and economists, the prevalence of young poor Filipinos who are under the 4’11” category is a serious cause of concern. They have labeled the problem as “stunting,” where the physical-vertical growth of kids has stopped due to malnutrition.

It is commonly known that malnutrition seriously retards or diminishes the body and the intellect of people, both young and adult. While being short, or vertically challenged, may be a bad deal for some, sociologists and economists have started to call attention to stunting.

We have all associated stunting with height and nothing more. But thanks to recent studies, both medicine and academe have determined that as height is stunted, so is a child’s capacity to absorb or learn. If I remember correctly, the absorptive capacity of a stunted child is reduced to only 5 to 25 percent of the total information presented to the child.

I recently had the privilege to watch a presentation made by Dr. Alvin Ang, PhD, chairman of the Department of Economics at Ateneo de Manila University, who spoke at a forum sponsored by Every Nation in BGC. Dr. Ang was tasked to speak about the economic good news in the Philippines, which he so gallantly attempted.

But what caught the audience’s attention was the concern over stunting in many of our provinces and how the loss of intellectual absorptive capacity among young kids will ultimately reflect or result in a non-competitive body of workers, employees and citizenry compared to other nations in the region who will be smarter and healthier. Once again, only the small minority of rich Filipino kids who can afford or have access to nutritious foods, supplements and health care will have the physicality and intelligence required to go to higher levels of learning and performance.

Come to think of it, this may also be telling us that many of the kids who drop out or under perform in public schools in depressed and far flung areas are not necessarily flunkers, lazy, under achievers or bobo. It is highly probable that malnutrition or serious lack of correct nutritious foods may have affected the absorptive capacity to learn their subjects.

This is something that the DepEd needs to seriously assess instead of focusing too much effort on curriculums. Evaluate the physical, nutritional and mental absorptive capacity of students first.

If the emphasis on stunting got people’s attention, what stunned me was the second point that Dr. Alvin Ang shared after a fellow academic from Indonesia or Vietnam asked: “Why are Filipinos seemingly OK with other countries surpassing them or overtaking the Philippines in terms of manufacturing, export, agricultural productivity, economic data and regional ranking? No one seems to be upset at being passed by and sinking lower and lower in the over-all economic performance and rankings.”

We could blame it all on politics and leadership but unfortunately for the audience, Dr. Alvin Ang was effective at throwing the ball back to his audience as a wake-up call. The new version of “Puede na” is apparently “OK lang.” It’s not ideal, but I’m OK; things could be better but I’m OK. The point is, why have we settled? The big picture of our country’s economic state is simply a collage of our collective status, performance and mindset.

Have we lowered our standards in order to reach some measure of contentment? I definitely don’t think the COVID pandemic has anything to do with it. If the economy is a collage, then what will the picture be when the next two generations of stunted Filipinos replace us in the marketplace and society?

Sadly, Dr. Alvin Ang was not alone in his view and concerns about stunting and the future defeat of Filipinos in the marketplace. Right after the weekend, our guests last Monday and Tuesday on AGENDA Cignal-TV both spoke about what their foundations were doing to try to combat malnutrition and stunting. First was Sebastian “Baste” Quiniones, chairman of the board of the League of Corporate Foundations.

During his guesting, Mr. Quiniones spoke of what the Shell Foundation was doing to address community concerns in their respective areas of operations by applying their strengths and resources, among them establishing a viable and developed source for food and potable water, and touched on nutrition and stunting.

The day after, Toto Barcelona spoke of the key project of Harbest Foundation, which was to help far-flung or depressed communities put up “Family Food Gardens” in every home or a training facility in every LGU or barangay to address serious malnutrition.

Barcelona shared that a Family Food Garden could effectively defeat the problem of malnutrition, starting with a small area of 20 to 50 square meters, planting leafy vegetables such as pechay, lettuce, etc. Complement that with root crop type veggies such as kamote, gabi, ube, etc., then plant vine or crawling types such as kangkong, string beans, sigarilyas or winged beans. Then fruit type veggies like upo, ampalaya and, in cooler climates such as Lipa or Tagaytay and Baguio, you can plant sayote. To round it off, plant papaya, banana and kalamansi.

We have identified the enemy, we see many allies on the ground and the logistics are very affordable. But before anything we must all be NOT OK with malnutrition, stunting and looking out just for ourselves. Being OK is not OK. Let’s be even better than OK.

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