Makati City - The Philippine NGO Council on Population, Health and Welfare (PNGOC) recently organized a workshop entitled "Setting Alternative Enabling Policy environment for Population and Reproductive Health (RH) Programs". This was held last September 26, 2003 at the Balagtas Ballroom of the Manila Peninsula Hotel, where various sectors and partners such as the National Youth Commission, Women Lead Foundation, PCCP, Young Moro Professionals Network, UP School of Economics, and government officials including former Senator Leticia Ramos-Shahani attended the said event.
Undersecretary Benjamin D. de Leon, Chair of PNGOC, stressed that those who will be champions to speak for the program need not only "commitment, concern, and intention" but the formulation of "a covenant so as to be heard, to be seen".
An environmental analysis was done by speakers Dr, Zahidul Huque, United Nations Population Fund Country Representative and Dr. Alex Herrin of the UP School of Economics by presenting the global and regional perspectives in population and development and a historical account of Philippine population policies, resources and outcomes, respectively.
Among the current statistics presented by UNFPA Country Representative Dr. Zahidul
Huque were as follows:
On the demographic situation
- World population stands at 6.1 billion in 2003
- Population Growth Rate is at 1.3% annually or an additional 17 million people per year
- Only 6 countries account for half the growth: India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Indonesia
- Virtually all population growth are in developing countries
On age structure
- More than 1 billion are between the ages 15-24
- The elderly has surpassed the child population and by 2050 there will be two elderly persons for every one child
On urbanization
- As of 2000, 2.9 billion live in urban areas comprising 47% of the total world population
On the socio-economic situation
- Over 1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty on less than $1 a day
- South and East Asia account for the largest number of people in income poverty
- South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have the largest concentrations of hungry People
On reproductive health
- 350 million couples lack access to safe and affordable family planning methods
- Every minute, one woman dies needlessly from the complications of pregnancy and childbirth
- 48% of all births in the developing world take place without trained medical attendants
- One in every 10 births worldwide is to a teenage mother
- 36.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS
- Every minute, 10 people are newly infected with HIV and half of these infections occur among young people.
In his presentation, Dr. Huque mentioned that despite programs on family planning and reproductive health, there is more work to do. This is where the Millenium Development Goals (MDG) have set in. In September 2000, a total of 191 nations adopted this approach. The MDGs are as follows:
- Eradicate poverty and hunger
- Achieve universal primary education
- promote gender equity and empower women
- reduce by 2/3 child mortality
- reduce maternal mortality by ¾
- halt/reverse HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
- Ensure environmental sustainability
- Develop a global partnership for development
Due to widening poor-rich gaps in health conditions, Dr. Huque sees the bottom-up or prioritization of the poor population first as the most favorable scenario. Another explanation to this would be "all gains go first to the poor; gains begin flowing to the better-off only after the poor have reached the best possible level".
The additional US$50 billion needed to meet MDGs continues to be a threat to MDG realization because resources are not enough. Diversion of resources to finance war against international terrorism is another hindrance pointed out. Dr. Huque sees the dire need for political will of governments to pursue and achieve the MDGs.
On the other hand, Dr. Alex Herrin of the UP School of Economics, presented population policy, resources and performance revealing slow fertility decline, high infant and child mortality among the poor, early childbearing, high proportion wanting no more children among the poor; low contraceptive use especially by the poor; the major influence of the Catholic Church in the its "persistent and consistent opposition" to the government population policy of reducing population growth as well as its promotion of artificial family planning methods", and the lack of consistency in policy to reduce fertility and promote FP. Households finance close to half of total expenditures for FP services; donors and NGO contribute another 30%; and very little government expenditures for Adolescent Health and Youth Development. According to WHO, promoting the healthy development of adolescents is an important long-term investment any society can make.
During the Plenary discussion, among the views for the call for action were: to make use of existing people's organizations in local infrastructures in promoting FP, to create a comfortable environment for politicians who will advocate FP, create more local champions for FP/RH, gather women's groups towards the making of a consistent and unified stand on RH/FP programs, wide dissemination of research findings on FP/RH, involve the business sector, challenge the Church's 'line' and engage them in a 'debate' at ground level through people's organizations, put the population, RH and FP in the electoral agenda; and to target the youth being future leaders.
The passage of HB 4110 or the Reproductive Health Care Act is underway. The Reproductive Health Advocacy network, a coalition of over 21 NGOs in the Philippines working in RH advocacy have seen the non-recognition of RH as a basic human right. The act aims for availability of RH services, universal access, and quality care through consistent national policy and budgeting.
As future molders, mentors, developers of our own society, a great calling for interest in RH and population development is much seen. With the present socio-economic struggle our country is facing, unplanned and early pregnancies among the youth, increasing number of abortions (400,000 per year according to recent surveys), we, especially those in the health sector, are much obliged to take part in the prevention of such scenarios, giving particular attention to the underprivileged.
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