By Alma Anonas-Carpio

If the youth are the future of the Philippines, then former Sen. Tessie Aquino-Oreta’s long-standing advocacy for early childhood care and development (ECCD) is one that seeks to build a better nation by nurturing better citizens from the cradle.

“When you talk to me about children and early childhood care and development, I am in my element,” Oreta said. “I believe that children from age zero to 5 years—the vital years, in my opinion—are at their most receptive to stimuli, this is when their brain cells are all fired up and this is when children are literally like sponges, absorbing all the stimuli from their environment.”

Citing various studies on the matter, she said, “Children aged zero to 5 are in the vital years of learning-and I do not mean just the things that they need to enter grade school, like basic math and language skills. At this age, children are most receptive to learning how to nurture, how to love and learning the values that will serve them well through life. It is during this time that they develop habits that will be theirs for the rest of their lives. It is during this time that the human brain learns fastest and retains the most data.” After the age of 5, she added, “The brain cells that are so brightly lit will begin to dim.” It is at this point that homo sapiens’ learning curve begins to flatten out, a process that continues as the human being ages.

Of course, without proper nutrition, the human brain will not function optimally. Malnutrition is the leading cause of poor school performance, followed closely by illness and a home environment where the child is deprived of stimuli and an atmosphere conducive to learning. “The first thing we need to take care of is feeding our children properly. If there is no fuel, the brain will not work right. We can knock ourselves out improving schools and teachers, but if the student goes to school hungry, then there isn’t much to work with.”

“Children also need to learn hygiene, such as how to wash their hands before touching food, how to be neat in their appearance and so on-again, lessons learned at home and lessons that must be taught by example,” she added. “Parents and caregivers also teach children the basics of language by speaking to them and by identifying parts of the body and objects and animals in the household.”

“We should really start them early,” Oreta said of children. “Most children will learn to appreciate the flavor of vegetables and healthful foods like malunggay if these are introduced early enough for them to develop a taste for them. Children will learn language and social skills well if they are spoken to and interacted with. They are observant and they will absorb from their environment the lessons and values that define who they will be.”

Using these data, Oreta embarked on the Pamana program in 2002, just a few years after her stint as the representative of the lone district of Malabon-Navotas, where the program was tested. The Pamana program sought to teach mothers how to properly care for their infants and pre-schoolers, and it covered the basics of hygiene, nutrition, values formation and stimulation of the child’s learning capability through communication and nurturing. Pamana later piloted in Nueva Ecija province and Oreta is being tapped by President Arroyo to head a yet-to-be-named agency that will unify the government’s efforts to empower mothers, fathers, caregivers and other parent surrogates to care for the country’s youngest citizens.

A parent’s first task is to ensure the health of the child, Oreta stressed, “which is why we made sure the mothers we trained under Pamana learned how to feed their babies nutritious food, from breastfeeding babies to feeding these children malunggay and other highly nutritious but easily affordable foods. We also ensured that they learned proper hygiene, which is the first step to preventing illnesses. After that we went on to teach parents values education, because children learn their values at home.”

Nature and nurture

“Many people say that the way adults turn out is a product of both nature and nurture, of genetics and their environment,” Oreta tells the Philippines Graphic in an interview. “Genetics remain constant—once you’ve inherited your parents’ genes, they’re yours for life. However, people are also products of their environment. If a baby is given an environment conducive to optimal development, then they are more likely to turn out to be good in school and, later, good, productive citizens.”

The effort to raise the bar for child care in the Philippines is a complicated matter, involving many agencies, including the Department of Health (DOH), which is in charge of children’s immunizations and education toward proper nutrition; the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), which oversees the social aspect of these efforts, including the training of parents and parent surrogates to meet the psychological and social needs of their charges and evaluates the family’s financial and emotional fitness to care for children; the Department of Education (DepEd), which oversees school feeding programs, curriculum development and teacher training; the Department of the Interior and Local Governments (DILG), which is in charge of coordinating local government efforts to improve child welfare, especially the welfare of the most vulnerable group of children, the “under-fives.” Add to that group the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP), which is now part of the government’s organized ECCD effort.

With all these government agencies involved in ensuring the welfare of Filipino children, the task of making a coordinated and efficient effort to care for under-fives seems daunting and complex, but Oreta has only 14 or so months to get such an effort on the road. “I serve at the pleasure of the President and I am coterminous with her, so I have my work cut out for me,” she said. “But I am not daunted. I have served in government and I know how government works. I have done this before and I can do it again, especially for the children who are so precious to me.”

While her emphatic statements may seem, on the surface, to have been uttered with a politician’s glib flair, Oreta’s track record shows that she was a lawmaker who advocated child welfare. She authored many pieces of legislation that have made improvements in government policies that oversee the public- education system and support systems for parents and their children.

The policies endure, even if she is not always remembered as the author or main sponsor of the draft legislation and republic acts that have created these changes. “I don’t mind if I am not credited with these things,” she said. “What is important is that the job of protecting, educating and nurturing our children gets done right.” Now that she is no longer a lawmaker, she remains an ECCD advocate.

Oreta is often remembered as the infamous “Dancing Queen” for the impromptu boogie number she performed in the Senate session hall in 2000, during the impeachment trial of then-President Joseph Estrada. That aside, Oreta also has a considerable body of legislative work on the public-education system, child welfare and protection, and ECCD. Hers is a case of taking the good with the bad, of winning some and losing some.

“I have already apologized for (dancing in the Senate session hall),” Oreta said evenly, a smile on her face. “I apologized because I knew I had offended the sensibilities of many people, not for any other reason. However, I do not think that my moniker of “the Dancing Queen” will affect the credibility of my efforts to push for early childcare and development. I see that, in spite of that controversy, the programs that led to this new task of creating a government body to coordinate ECCD efforts nationwide were well received, and I have been thanked by many people-including my constituents in Malabon and Navotas and the beneficiaries of the program we tested in Nueva Ecija. They want Pamana to continue, if that is any indicator of how happy the people are with my efforts as a legislator, as a member of government.”

Multi-pronged task, political persuasion

The task Mrs. Arroyo is giving Oreta is multi-pronged, complicated and one that wears many faces-kind of like a hydra. “I will focus on children aged 5 and below only,” Oreta said. “After that age, they are in school and under the purview of existing government programs from the DOH, DSWD, DepEd and other agencies that are already working to ensure that the government’s child-welfare programs remain on track.”

“I believe that, by nurturing our children early in life, we are going to create a better society, build a stronger country,” she said. “I have seen the results with Pamana. The babies whose mothers we trained are now in grade school and their grades are remarkably good.” Ditto for the pilot project in Nueva Ecija, she added. “This is an advocacy I am happy to continue. I have always been an advocate for education and I wanted to take education back further even from pre-school. The child’s first classroom is the home. His first teachers are his parents and the rest of his family. This is how it was traditionally and I believe there is substance to that tradition.”

The effort Oreta is spearheading is one that seeks “to make parents, family members and other care providers realize that these offspring, these children are growing into the people they will help shape. We want them to realize that building a better country is something that is literally in their hands. They are mainly responsible for how these children turn out-whether these children become productive and upstanding citizens or monsters. That is the difference parents and family can make.”

In pushing her Pamana project, Oreta had once spoken to LGU officials in these terms: “You make ECCD advocacy a priority on your political agenda and really mean it. Really do it. You will see, it will be your ticket to winning the elections. Make a success of this advocacy in your constituency and then put it on your campaign (materials) and you will see, you will get the votes.”

She still believes that statement, adding that a lady mayor who had duplicated her Pamana project indeed stood for reelection and won. “It is politics to say this,” she acknowledged, “but I know that politics is not a bad thing, though many people take the word ‘politics’ to mean many evil things. Politics can be good and, let’s face it, one of the best ways to convince policymakers like local government officials to carry a good project is to tweak their self-interest (button).” G

*Published in the Philippines Graphic Magazine