Chaotic sound chamber

Sen. Ramon “Bong”   Revilla Jr. lofted  a trial  balloon  Monday.  He  may make a 2016 presidential run, said the 47-year- old actor-governor-turned-senator. Ma-aga  pa na man.   English doesn’t catch all the nuances of the word garapal.

“If you can’t  raise a billion pesos, why  run?” rags-to-riches 64-year-old Sen. Manuel Villar  told  Reuters. Villar  lobbed  President Joseph Estrada’s  impeachment  to the Senate without catching a breath  after  his opening prayer. He owns a P48-billion real estate firm and  dealt  himself into the  race. A  less-affluent  President Benigno Aquino  trashed  Villar  in  the 2010 polls.

“I  dislike millionaires,” writer Mark Twain joked.  “But  it’d  be dangerous to offer me the position.”

Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr.  frets  at “the starting line”. He churns out press releases on everything   except  last year’s   $353.6 million  fine  by the US Federal Court.   Bongbong  tried  to smuggle  paintings  from judicially contested hearings, the  9th circuit  court  fumed.  Marcos Jr.  ducks.

Who of our  kids meanwhile  will die ? Infant death rates here stagnated at 19 per 100,000 births. Compare that to  Taiwan’s six. The toll  resembles that of  Ecuador. Yes, the   Ecuador  that   former  US   national security  contractor Edward Snowden, accused of espionage, would sneak  into  and  shake off  pursuing US federal  posses.

How many under-5-year-old  infants will  slump into premature graves?  Here,   25 for every 1,000,  a UN Interagency Group reports. We’re bracketed with  oil-flush  Iran ruled by ayatollahs.  It is 7 for  Malaysia.

And how  many  will  achieve  what the Psalmist writes? “Seventy is the sum of our years, eighty if we are strong”   Don’t ask  Revilla. In  Cavite, functional illiteracy stood at 9 percent,  the last time the Philippine Human Development Report ( PHDR)  looked.  And 7 percent  lacked “improved water sources.”  Life expectancy today for Filipinos and Guatemalans  is 73, the World Health  Organization estimates. A Singaporean can live to 82.

But lust for power blinds. Today’s “candidates” plot  well past midnight on how to grab political advantage.

“Let me have men about  me that are fat, / Sleek-headed men such as sleep a-nights,” Shakepeare’s  Ceasar mutters   to  Antony  “Yond  Cassius has a lean and hungry look; / He thinks too much…”

A  study on the Philippines, Brazil, India, South Africa and Guatemala found  that “Interventions  during  first two years of life (of a child)  “are likely to result in substantial gains” in height,  schooling,  the  research  journal  “Lancet”  ( March 28, 2013 ) reported. They  “give some protection from adult chronic disease.  Adverse trade offs are few.”

How would  Bongbong react?  In Ilocos Norte, the poorest  10 percent make do with three centavos of every peso while the richest get 28 centavos, PHDR says. And that doesn’t include secret dollar accounts in the  Virgin   Island.

Tracking of 3,080 mothers and infants from  243  Cebu barangays  partly anchors this analysis.  The late Fr. Wilhelm Flieger SVD crafted the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey at the University of  San Carlos Office  of Population Studies in 1983

“Yesterday’s infants are today’s adults,” Viewpoint reported  ( PDI / June 25, 2012 ). “Some are parents and hold down jobs. There are school dropouts. A number have died and 136 moved out. One is an OFW worker in  Iceland. In 2011,  San Carlos completed its examination of new pregnancies and births among  once-1983 infants. This “makes CLHNS a three-generation study.”

Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the new  analysis  covers  8,362  participants in three age periods: 0-2 years; 2  years to midchildhood’; and midchildhood to adult stage. Brazil failed to track 17 percent of infants, studied by Universidade Federal de Pelotas, into adulthood. “ Guatemala and  Cebu showed marked growth failure in early childhood.  South Africa and  India showed intermediate patterns.

The bottom line for decisive intervention is the first 24 months of  a child’s life. “Act there,” Cesar  Victoria of  Brazil  stressed  earlier. Dividends in a  child’s health dwindle in the third year onwards.

“Our findings suggest that interventions to increase birth  weight and linear growth during the first 2 years of life are likely to result in substantial gains in height and schooling,”  Lancet  adds.

Malnourished pregnant mothers result in stunting of kids, lower attained schooling, reduced adult income.  Indeed, “stunting today is the most prevalent nutritional challenge in developing nations,” the G8 summit  heard  mid-June at   Enniskillen, Northern Ireland.  Worldwide, 165 million children are affected.” (In Philippine kindergarten and primary classes, 562,262 pupils are “severely wasted.”) The World Bank boosted this year’s funding for child nutrition from $230 million to $600 million. The European Union pledged an extra $500 million for related projects.

Except for Sub-Saharan Africa, mortality and under-nutrition are falling substantially in most parts of the world.  New targets are now being formulated  to replace the 2015 Millennium Development Goals. This five country study  “provides strong justification for the proposal of a new goal, namely a reduction in stunting,” adds the Lancet report. This would replace the present  target  which is narrowly  constricted to  whittling down underweight .

Filipino politics is a chaotic sound chamber. The most strident  voices erupt  from  would-be 2016  candidates who clone yesterday’s trapos.They drown out the whimper  of  vulnerable infants  and emaciated mothers.  And that silencing guts our common humanity.