A Brief History of the NNC in the Philippines - 834 Words

â€Å"Nutrition is not only a science†¦ it is governance, it is politics. It is finance, it is labor and employment.† - Assistant Secretary Maria-Bernardita T. Flores, CESO II, Executive Director IV Nutrition History in the Making Rising from the ashes after World War II, the Philippines was a picture of great despair. Cities and towns had been burned down, farms and factories laid to waste, roads and bridges destroyed, and thousands of people massacred. Those who survived the war were forced to put up with hunger and severe malnutrition as food was devastatingly scarce. In March 1947, under the Manuel Roxas regime, the Philippine Institute of Nutrition (PIN) was created in an attempt to institutionalize a national nutrition program. This marked the country’s first step at organized efforts for nutrition. However, coordination proved to be rather limited and rudimentary, and the implementation of nutrition programs was sporadic at best. Approaches to problems related to nutrition were short-lived and more curative rather than preventive. PIN was later reorganized under the Carlos P. Garcia administration into the Food and Nutrition Research Center (NFRC) in 1958, and nutrition-related activities coordinated by this Center were done under the National Science and Development Board (NSDB). With the aid of innovations in research and technology, nutritional problems in the country were met with a more multisectoral approach. More and more agencies representing different