Oh My Gulay! goes nationwide, gets private sector support

MANILA, Philippines - The private sector has rallied its support behind the nationwide Oh My Gulay! (OMG) campaign by sponsoring school vegetable gardens in public elementary schools around the country.

Banco De Oro Universal Bank, Asian Terminals, Inc., the Aboitiz Foundation, Sunwest Care Foundation and the Infant and Pediatric Nutrition Association of the Philippines have signed a memorandum of agreement with Education Secretary Armin Luistro, and Senator Edgardo Angara, lead advocate of the “Oh My Gulay!” (OMG) vegetable planting promotion campaign in schools, wherein the entities committed to provide the P65,000 financial assistance each to a school that they will adopt for the campaign.

BDO, represented by its chairman Tessie Sy-Coson, will adopt 15 public schools; ATI represented by president Eusebio Tanco, will adopt 10; IPNAP, 4; Sunwest Care Foundation, 5; and the Aboitiz Foundation six schools.

At present, there are some 6,000 public elementary and high schools involving 1.8 million students to be covered by the OMG project.

“While 6,000 seem like a big number, it only represents 15 percent of all public schools in the country,” noted Luistro.

The OMG advocacy program is a brainchild of Angara, who chairs the Senate committee on education, arts and culture.

It also seeks to battle this “hidden hunger” not only by creating greater awareness about the wonders of vegetable consumption, but also by empowering children, their schools and their families to produce and enjoy their own vitamin- and mineral-rich vegetables.

Latest figure from the Food and Nutrition Research Council showed that 26 in every 100 children (6-10 years old - 25.6 percent) or about 1.8 million school children are underweight for their age; 33 in every 100 children (6-10 years old - 33.1 percent) or about 1.2 million school children are stunted or short for their age and 20 in every 100 school children (6-12 years old - 19.8 percent) are anemic.

 “Our educational system is already beset with so many problems. We lack funds, facilities, and skilled teachers. But we cannot allow ourselves neglect one fundamental cause of the dwindling quality of education: malnutrition in schoolchildren,” Angara said. “We cannot ignore the obvious link between nutrition and education,” the senator added.

To increase awareness on the need to eat vegetables, the OMG organizers tapped popular TV and radio celebrities like Anne Curtis, Sarah Geronimo, Cristine Reyes, Mark Bautista and Sam Pinto to help in the campaign.

The school gardening program also includes the training of teachers in the nutritional benefits of vegetables through an instructional module to be included in their home economics lesson.

DepEd said that studies have shown that among South East Asians, Filipinos rank lowest in vegetable consumption at 40 kilograms per head each year. This is in contrast to China whose consumption is 250 kilos per head each year.