President Duterte Signs Executive Order For Strict Implementation Of Reproductive Health Law
The Duterte administration is
determined to take “critical actions” to enable couples especially the poor
make informed choices on family planning.
President Duterte has signed
Executive Order No.12 on the strict implementation of the Responsible
Parenthood and Reproductive Health (RPRH) law.
“This order aims to intensify and
accelerate the implementing of critical actions necessary to attain and sustain
‘zero unmet need for modern family planning’ for all poor households by 2018,
and all of Filipinos thereafter, within the context of the RPRH Law and its
implementing rules.”
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary
Ernesto Pernia said the executive order is focused on providing government
support to couples in achieving the “desired number of children rather than
have more children they want or afford.”
“The EO is really for modern family
planning services, modern contraceptives to be adopted by women of reproductive
age,” said Pernia in a Palace press briefing.
“This is going to be a free — this
will be at no cost to the users of the — or the acceptors of contraceptives,”
he added.
If the Reproductive Health Law is
not fully implemented, Pernia said the poverty reduction target from 21.6% to
14% by the end of the President’s term might not be achieved.
He said the executive order on the
reproductive health program also aims to lower maternal mortality rate and
teenage pregnancy. At present, there are around 231 maternal deaths per 100,000
live births.
In EO 12, the Department of Health,
Commission on Population, Department of Interior and Local Government, and
other government agencies have been directed to map areas of couples with unmet
need for family planning and capacitate local structures to provide modern
family planning commodities and services.
A national implementation team for
the RPRH law will submit to the Office of the President an annual progress
report six months after the effectivity of EO 12 and thereafter at the end of
every April.
If the RH program is fully
implemented up to 2022, Commission on Population Executive Director Juan
Antonio Perez III said the country’s population growth rate might go down to
1.4%.
Currently, the country has a
population of 104 million with a growth rate of 1.7%.
Source: Manila Bulletin
President Duterte Signs Executive Order For Strict Implementation Of Reproductive Health Law
Reviewed by Yen
on
January 12, 2017
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