AGUSAN DEL SUR (Mindanao Examiner / Apr. 26, 2014) – The EU funded Indigenous Peoples Maternal Neonatal and Child Health and Nutrition project or IP MNCHN said Agusan del Sur has established systems of coordination among stakeholders to ensure actualization of plans and programs concerning the natives’ maternal, neonatal, and child health and nutrition in the southern Philippine province.
It said the Municipal Council of San Luis has approved a resolution allocating P500,000 for community outreach programs related to the needs of the Manobo-Banwaon indigenous tribe in the village of Binicilan.
“Our commitment to the project is our commitment to our Lumad brothers and sisters of San Luis believing that our efforts in Barangay Binicalan will lead to vital developments in the delivery of health services for the entire Lumad community of our municipality,” it said, quoting San Luis Municipality Mayor Ronaldo Corvera.
It said the Governor Adolph Edward Plaza has also established the Provincial Project Management Committee as the leading coordinating body of the project.
“Our implementation of the project in Barangay Binicalan has been made easier because of the direct and active participation of the municipal and provincial government units of the locality and various national agencies. The convenience caused by this mechanism is helping us cope with the implementation span of the project which will end in 2016,” IP MNCHN Project Director Lilibeth Malabanan said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
The project, through a joint management with United Nations Population Fund, is also providing assistance in the birth registration of indigenous peoples in all sites of the project. Just recently, a birth registration agents’ Workshop was held in Patin-ay in Agusan del Sur.
“While we recognize the importance of birth registration for the Indigenous Peoples, we also want this service to be sustainably available for them. We are conducting this workshop to capacitate the Indigenous Peoples themselves in the conduct of mobile birth registration. As it is, majority of indigenous communities are situated in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas and to have the indigenous people as birth registration agents will truly make this program sustainable,” IP MNCHN Program Manager for UNFPA Dr. Cemellie Bernadette Sabay said in the same statement.
As of 2010, the Census of Population and Housing revealed that only 34.19% or 1,054 of the 3,103 total population of Binicalan was registered.
Sabay said the ultimate end of IP MNNCHN Project-Mindanao is to provide a healthy community for the country’s indigenous tribes and promotion of their health rights and welfare.
She said it is in these precepts that the project has been initiating mobile birth registration as this opens door for accessing other fundamental rights of the Indigenous Peoples including their right to health, state benefits, and participation in the society.
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