Despite the 20 national laws safeguarding the children in the country and the “excellent response” of the government officials to children issues, the work to protect them is nowhere near done, according to Unicef Representative Nicholas K. Alipui.
            During the North Luzon Legislative Summit for Children, Alipui also acknowledged that the Filipino society is nurturing and caring and concerned about the welfare of the children.
            But despite the nurturing environment and the laws on protecting children, “an increasing number of children are falling through the cracks because of the deepening poverty and widening deprivation and disparities,” Alipui said.
            “Some children in certain disadvantaged communities are not having the same development experiences like the other children in other countries. These are the children who are not able to go through quality elementary education and who live in communities which are not able to send them through early childhood care programs,” Alipui explained.
            The country has 20 national laws on the rights of the children but the implementation of these various laws still has to “find resonance and concrete application at the local levels” through the local codes on children,  Alipui added.
            Executive Director Lina Laigo of the Council for the Welfare for Children said the country still has to work on the implementation of the national children laws. “We are still struggling with some laws like on breastfeeding,” she said. The law calls for exclusive breastfeeding of babies..
The three-day summit, which ends Thursday, aims to come up with a local code for children in the different provinces of northern Luzon.
            Alipui noted that at present, only 69 out of the 196 local government units have local codes on children which are needed to “translate” the national laws to fit the local settings.
            “But I think the local government’s response to children can be classified as excellent. I have no doubt in my mind that the political will is there. I never met any official who struck me as insensitive to the (plight of) children. It’s just a question of political choices, of prioritizing affirmative actions to target that segment of community lagging behind,” he said.
            Pangasinan Vice Governor Oscar Lambino said the province was in the process of  crafting a children’s code which “is adaptable to our particular situation.”
            During a press conference, Alipui said “there are certain critical areas in children’s development that we want to bring out in the summit,” one of which is that “every year, the Philippines receive nearly 1,700,000 new children into the population.”
            “To provide for nearly two million (children) is almost like running in a conveyor belt moving in a different direction. The sheer demand on basic social services is enormous,” he said.
            He explained that the decline in quality of education and access to early childhood care and preschool is because the demand is overwhelming the supply of basic services. “We need to redouble our efforts and expand the services in terms of food investments and training of human resources and infrastructure to meet the increasing demand placed on the system.”
            He said the early child care and development and pre-school was set by law, only one out of three children is able to go though pres-school.
            But the problem does not end there. The third issue that the local legislature must tackle is the decline in the quality of elementary education, Alipui said.
            “The ability to go to school and stay the course and excel in Math, Science, Filipino and English is declining over the years. We have seen classrooms with hundreds of students and very little learning (is) taking place. It is clear that children who are poorer have more inferior quality education,” he said.
            The third point that he raised was the child protection issue. “We are seeing an increasing number of children falling prey to commercial sexual exploitation, prostitution, alcoholism and other nasty things that are happening to children in the country.”
            The good news is that there has been a sharp decrease in infant mortality rate from 1990 level and today, now estimated at 24 for every 1,000 live births.
            But there has been a marginal decrease in the maternal mortality rate which is estimated at 172 for every 100,000 live births. “At our current rate, we will not meet the 2015 goal of 52 unless we invest more and fast tract action in this critical area of survival for women” Alipui said.