E. Samar town fears rise in malnutrition
SALCEDO, Eastern Samar — Crammed into a small shanty in Barangay Bagtong in Salcedo town, Eastern Samar are the seven members of Violeta Openia's extended family. Among them is the 35-year-old mother and son John Kenneth Kevin, 6 and a Grade One student.
Last year, John Kenneth's teacher told Violeta her son is underweight. Not really surprising since Violeta is a housewife and her husband a former coconut farmer forced to turn to fishing after super typhoon Yolanda devastated Eastern Visayas's coconut plantations, the main source of livelihood for many residents of one of the country's poorest regions.
On a good day, Violeta's husband makes just P100 from fishing, barely enough to feed their extended family. "If my husband catches nothing, we eat cassava everyday," Violeta told InterAksyon.com.
What may seem surprising is that, in the year after Yolanda, the incidence of malnutrition among children in Salcedo had actually improved, according to town health officials.
Municipal health officer Maria Soccoro Campo said malnutrition dropped from 11 percent in 2013 to 7 percent in 2014. She credited this to the influx of aid from international non-government organizations that responded after Yolanda.
"The interventions of the I-NGOs here after Yolanda were really a huge factor because the number of malnourished children really went down. It may be hard to admit but we really lack food," Campo said.
This caused Campo apprehensive over the impending departure of the I-NGOs when they have fulfilled their post-disaster missions. "I am worried because Salcedo's nutritional status may suddenly drop. It remains to be seen what our nutritional status will be in the coming years," she said.
For Violeta and her family, the future cannot seem bleaker. Not only has their poverty worsened with the virtual loss of the coconut industry — which they used to depend, close to a year and a half since Yolanda — and that they have yet to receive the "emergency shelter assistance" as promised by government.