Bacolod councilor seeks new family planning strategy

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BY MAE SINGUAY
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Monday, February 26, 2018
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BACOLOD City – The Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) approved on first reading a proposed ordinance adopting the Unmet Need Reduction Strategy (UNRS) for family planning.

Couples with the unmet need for family planning are those who are “fecund and sexually active and want to limit or space their children but are not using any method of contraception,” according to Councilor Em Ang, chairwoman of the SP committee on health.

Also the proposed ordinance’s proponent, Ang said the UNRS can help couples achieve their desired family size and even reduce the incidence of teenage pregnancies in Bacolod City.

Ang cited Republic Act 10354, or the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012, which “recognizes the right of Filipinos to decide freely and responsibly on their desired number and spacing of children, within the context of responsible parenthood and informed choice, and to access needed reproductive health care information services.”

A 2016 data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that 15 percent of women in Bacolod have unmet needs for modern method of contraception, making them unable to exercise their reproductive right, according to Ang.

If passed, Ang’s proposed ordinance will create a council that will be tasked to implement, coordinate, monitor, and enforce the adoption of UNRS in the city.

The council will be composed of the mayor as the chairperson, the city population officer as the vice chairperson, and the city health officer, SP committee on health chairperson, SP committee on family and child care development chairperson, SP committee on gender and development chairperson, Department of Interior and Local Government-Bacolod director, Department of Education-Bacolod Schools Division Superintendent, city planning and development officer, city social service and development officer, city budget officer, Association of Barangay Captains president, and a nongovernment organization representative as members.

A budget worth P1 million was set for the proposal if passed.

PH FERTILITY RATE DOWN

Overall, Filipino women of fertile age are now giving birth to fewer children, latest government data showed.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) released its 2017 National Demographic and Health Survey recently, showing Filipino women’s fertility rate went down to 2.7 live births last year from three in 2013.

The Commission on Population (POPCOM) attributed the drop to the increase in married women’s use of modern family planning methods by over 40 percent over the past few years.

“This is an unprecedented chance for family planning in the last four years, which coincided with the first four to five years of implementation of the Responsible Parenthood Reproductive Health (RPRH) Law,” said POPCOM executive Director Juan Antonio Perez.

Perez said the survey also showed that while more women were using oral contraceptive pills and injectables, the use of Progestin Subdermal Implant (PSI) was now only 1.1 percent.

He said such scenario was due to the two-year Supreme Court Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on implants and contraceptives.

With the result, he added, POPCOM and its member agencies would continue to focus on the poorest 40 percent of Filipinos, who have the highest unmet need for family planning.

“The National Family Planning Program needs to be more unified to achieve a reduction in unmet needs for family planning at a scale that will lead to an even greater reduction in fertility by the end of the Duterte Administration in 2022,” said Perez.

He also cited the need to break new ground among workers, farmers, and fisherfolk in urban and rural areas, where unmet need in family planning remains high. (With a report from the Philippine News Agency/PN)
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