RSCC I Resolution No. 11, s.2007

REQUESTING THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT UNITS (LGUs) TO FOLLOW THE SYSTEM OF DATA GENERATION AND REPORTING OF THE OPERATION TIMBANG (OPT) DATA/RESULTS 

WHEREAS, nutrition statistics are vital information needed to efficiently monitor the implementation of the nutrition programs of the government, particularly the nutritional status of pre-school children;

WHEREAS, the Operation Timbang (OPT), one of the methods used for growth monitoring, is the weighing of pre-school children 0-71 months or below six (6) years old in a community, which is done every first quarter of each year, to identify and locate the malnourished children;

WHEREAS, the result of the OPT, in the absence of an annual National Nutrition Survey results, is a vital information used for local nutrition program planning, particularly in describing the nutritional status of the community, quantifying the number of malnourished and identifying barangays which are nutritionally at risk;

WHEREAS, inherent to the 1991 Local Government Code on the devolution of basic powers and functions is the devolution on the conduct of the OPT activities and the generation of OPT results at the barangay, city/municipal and provincial levels in support to planning, policy-formulation and decision-making at the local level;

WHEREAS, the Revised Implementing Guidelines on the OPT dated January 2004 issued by the Interagency Task Force on OPT stipulates that the Municipal Nutrition Action Office (MNAO) and Municipal Health Office (MHO) shall generate the municipal OPT results and submit this to the Provincial Nutrition Action Office (PNAO) for provincial consolidation  while the City Nutrition Action Office (CNAO) and City Health Office (CHO) shall generate the city OPT results and submit this directly to the National Nutrition Council (NNC) Regional Office for consolidation;

 WHEREAS, the PNAO and Provincial Health Office (PHO) shall generate the provincial OPT results and submit these to the NNC Regional Office for regional consolidation; 

WHEREAS, the MHO, CHO and PHO shall release validated municipal, city and provincial OPT results, respectively;

WHEREAS, the NNC Regional Office shall facilitate the regional consolidation of provincial and city OPT results, which are later validated and released by the Department of Health (DOH) Regional Office  on or before July 15 of every year;

WHEREAS, the issue on conflicting nutrition statistics from the OPT at the regional and municipal/city levels was raised during Region 1’s  MDG Task Force meeting last March 2007 due to the release of inconsistent results between the NNC and DOH Regional Offices I, and the C/MNAO and C/MHO ;

            WHEREAS, the NSCB Regional Division I, as RSCC secretariat,  presented the  issue on conflicting OPT data at the local and regional levels during the 2nd RSCC meeting last July 2007 and provided some recommendations to avoid conflicting nutrition statistics and be able to generate and report timely, accurate and reliable OPT results as follows:

a) There should only be one official data source at the provincial and city/municipal and regional levels.  The DOH RO 1, being  the official data source of health and nutrition, shall facilitate the timely release of the  OPT results through the NNC Regional Office I at the regional level while at the provincial/city/municipal level, the PHO/CHO/MHO shall be the official data source of the OPT data; and

b) Prior to the release of the city/municipal data, it is suggested that the CHO/MHO and C/MNAO should conduct a data validation through their City/Municipal Nutrition Committee;

WHEREAS, the RSCC, being the highest policy-making body on statistical matters in the region, has been mandated to resolve problems and issues relating to subnatonal statistics;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, AS IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED, to request the LGUs to follow the system of data generation and reporting of the OPT data/results as hereto attached (Annex A of RSCC Res. No. 11-2007).

            APPROVED, this 24th day of July 2007 San Fernando City, La Union