Last Saturday, before I engaged in some beer shenanigans, I was asked to be a judge in the Region 4 regional finals of Kraft Cheez Whiz’s Palamantasan sa Sarap. I applied my superior skills in judging in the cheering competition, but there were several other competitions involved in the event. The participants were composed of grade school kids from Region 4 schools. It was the battle of the best of the best and I, well, I was amused.

Kraft Cheez Whiz, in partnership with the Department of Education, came up with the Palamantasan concept which is a nutrition education-based inter-school competition where grade school kids engage in intense combat in different competitions like speech choir, cheering and “jarchitecture”.

JARCHITECTURE!

The competition started back in July, Nutrition Month, and it’s still ongoing. The aim of this inter-school talent brawl is to spread awareness about malnutrition and promote proper eating habits among Filipino children. It’s not just for children, though. It actually convinced me that I need to brush up on my food pyramid. I know more about the X-Men and wrestling moves than I do about proper nutrition and the food pyramid! And that’s just wrong.

Palamantasan is one way of making Filipino children recognize the importance of proper nutrition while having fun, and we all know that the best way to learn is to take in knowledge while you’re having fun, amirite?! Reaching out to children to talk about nutrition is not easy, so I take my hat off to Kraft Cheez Whiz and the Department of Education for initiating this important campaign even though I don’t have a hat. But if I had a hat, I’ll take it off to them. But I don’t have one. So I just wrote this blog entry instead.

I have more photos of the Palamantasan event here. Beer shenanigans photos here.