Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

Dr. Henares-Esguerra, presented the award to former UNICEFRepresentative in the Philippines Dr. Nicholas K. Alipui, who is now Director of Programmes during a simple awarding ceremony held at the UNICEFbuilding in midtown Manhattan.The special recognition was given to the UNIC

"Together, we accomplished in six and a half months what the government could not accomplish in 20 years," Dr. Henares-Esguerra said.

She was referring to the revision of the Implementing Rules and Regulations for the Milk Code in the Philippines, a herculean task that brought Dr. Alipui and the Filipino advocates for breastfeeding through the bureaucracy of various government institutions including the Bureau of Food and Drugs, the Anti-Poverty Commission and both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Struggle

The partnership with the UNICEF through Dr. Alipui began in January 2005 when he referred to a statement of a presidential spokesman who cited that the sale of formula milk is surpassed only by the sale of cell phone services.

The doctor then wrote a stinging letter to the editor that appeared in major Philippine newspapers with a stern warning that the rise in consumption of formula milk is a death sentence to 16,000 Filipino children every year. He called on advocates in non-government organizations to fight this scourge and promised UNICEF’s support.

With that, a breastfeeding movement in the Philippines was born.

Dr. Henares-Esguerra, in a short speech, enumerated the various struggles they had to go through and the efforts made through UNICEF to overcome an overall lack of breastfeeding information, including a lawsuit brought against the Department of Health filed by milk companies to challenge the implementing rules issued by the department.

Among the successes she mentioned were the presidential proclamation for the annual celebration of World Breastfeeding Week; the initiation of a 5-year National Plan of Action on Infant and Young Child Feeding and the campaign to formulate a set of revised implementing rules and regulations that will give teeth to the 1986 National Milk Code, which the Supreme Court eventually validated.

The Philippines also broke the Guinness World Record for Most Women Breastfeeding in a Single Site – where the advocates were able to convince SM Supermalls to install Breastfeeding Stations in their 34 malls to serve tens of thousands of mothers and children nationwide.

"When Dr. Alipui left the country, we sorely missed his strong support but despite all the odds, we are happy to report that we have persevered in what we have started together and emerged triumphant," Dr. Esguerra added.

In accepting the award, Dr. Alipui said that success in the Philippines is "influencing what we do on a global level" – and that launching a worldwide breastfeeding campaign is critical to achieving the Millennium Development Goal of significantly reducing deaths of children under the age of five.

"Those were some of my best years," Dr. Alipui told the Asian Journal, referring to the years he spent in the Philippines as the UNICEF representative. He was joined in the awarding ceremony by his colleagues UNICEF Deputy Director of Programmes Maniza Zaman-Cespede and Chief of Staff Maria Calivis.

"The birth of the breastfeeding movement, like the birth of a nation, like the birth of a baby, is a mixture of pain and joy. In such a birth, the pain rises sharply until it is almost unbearable, then it slowly fades away. The miracle of birth is such that when the pain passes, only the joy remains," Dr. Esguerra said.

The presidential delegation from the Philippines – including breastfeeding advocate and Presidential Consultant on Infant and Young Child Feeding Nona Andaya-Castillo and Presidential Consultant on National Affairs Hilarion Henares, Jr. – also went to Washington, DC, to present an award posthumously to Edward Kennedy, the US Senator who died last year, for his work in championing the International Code on the Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes.