I THINK that the Philippines might be one of the few countries in the world wherein the fire services are nationalized or federalized, instead of being localized. Why is that so?
I recall that the reason why police services were nationalized was because the local politicians supposedly took advantage of their positions to use the policemen for their own private armies. That supposed problem does not affect firemen, to be sure.
To be clear, I am not against the idea of retaining the Philippine National Police (PNP) as the national police, because it could even co-exist with local police departments, in the same way that the old Philippine Constabulary (PC) co-existed with local police departments at that time.
Having said that, I do not see the need for a nationalized Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) that will co-exist with local fire departments. It is ironic that while the government is talking about devolution of functions to local government units (LGUs), no one seems to be talking about devolving fire services.
It is time I think that the devolution of fire services should already start, because fire protection is really a local concern. It is disappointing to note that up to now, there are still some LGUs that do not have fire trucks, and even if they do, these are already too old to be useful.
This problem could be avoided if the fire services were devolved.
STUNTING AND MALNUTRITION
Obviously, there is a symbiotic relationship between stunting and malnutrition.
To be clear, malnutrition does not necessarily result in stunting. In theory, stunting affects only infants and younger children who are malnourished, or are extremely malnourished, in other words.
Also in theory, juveniles and adults are no longer prone to stunting. It is important to know the difference between stunting and malnutrition, and to know the difference between infants and adults, so that we can isolate what the problem really is.
When the problem could be isolated, then the government would know how much money to allocate, to provide nutrition, that is the only solution to stunting.
How can life be fair if the growth of children is stunted starting from their infancy? How can these children even compete with other children in the schools, when they have a serious handicap in the first place?
Since we know that most of these children are born out of poverty, we could almost be sure that they have no other way to go but down to even deeper poverty.
As soon as possible, the government should create a database of stunted children, so that we will know who they are, where they are, and how many there are. Right away, the LGUs should be mobilized to solve this problem right away at the local level./PN
