President Rody Duterte To Provide Funds, Support Modern Family Planning For The Poor
President Rodrigo Duterte signed an
executive order providing funds and support for modern family planning, in a
bid to make modern family planning available to the poor by 2018.
“This Order aims to intensify and
accelerate the implementation of critical actions necessary to attain and
sustain ‘zero unmet need for modern family planning’ for all poor households by
2018,” reads Executive Order No. 12, signed by President Duterte.
Among the strategies outlined in
the four-page document is to do a comprehensive review of couples and
individuals in need of family planning services.
“There is a plan in the next six
months for local governments to go out in the field, to do house-to-house
visits, identify those in need of family planning, and work with all these
agencies,” National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Director General
Ernesto Pernia said in a press briefing.
Strengthening the Implementation of
the Reproductive Health Law is part of President Duterte’s 10-point
socio-economic agenda.
Pernia said that if the law was not
implemented properly, the Philippines would be “unable to meet our poverty
reduction target.”
The government hopes to reduce
poverty to 13 percent by the end of President Duterte’s six-year term in 2022,
the socio-economic manager added.
The Philippines has six million
women, of which two million are poor, that “have unmet need for any modern
method of contraception, and remain unable to fully exercise their reproductive
rights,” the Executive Order said, citing Philippine Statistics Authority
findings from 2013.
The Order seeks to mobilize the
Department of Health, Commission on Population, Department of Interior and
Local Government (DILG) in implementing “quality modern family planning
information and services.”
It called for the agencies to map
areas and locate individuals with unmet needs, mobilize local structures,
conduct demand generation and referral activities, and partner with the private
sector.
The Health Department is tasked by
the EO to “review the gaps in the implementation of the RH (Reproductive
Health) Law, issue corresponding orders and guidelines, and implement interventions
to support LGUs (Local Government Units) and CSOs (Civil Society Organizations).”
The Department of Education is also
tasked to implement a “gender sensitive and rights-based” sexuality education
in schools.
The Department of Social Welfare
and Development is set to integrate the law’s strategies in the national
poverty reduction and social protection programs.
The Philippine Commission on Women
is expected to “promote reproductive health rights.”
PhilHealth will “implement benefit
packages that ensure maximum benefits for family planning services.”
The Commission on Population will
adopt the attainment of “zero unmet need for modern family planning as a population
management strategy.”
The Order provides that funds for the
implementation of the plan “shall be sourced from available funds of the
agencies concerned,” although future expenses are to be included in budget
proposals.
It also said that the Department of
Budget and Management “may realign and augment appropriations” in accordance
with regulation.
The Responsible Parenthood and
Reproductive Health Law was enacted under President Noynoy Aquino in December
2012 after a contentious 14-year battle with the Catholic Church and pro-life
groups.
But its full implementation was
held back by a temporary restraining order (TRO) against contraceptive
implants, issued by the Supreme Court in July 2015.
The TRO came after the Health Department
had acquired around 400,000 contraceptive implants for distribution. Complaints
that the contraceptives had alleged abortaficient qualities surfaced, which the
government contested.
“Pro-life groups keep saying that
contraception or family planning or the reproductive health law is
abortifacient, it's anti-life,” said Pernia. “But... we in the government, we
think differently... We feel that it is pro-life, pro-women, pro-children, and
pro-economic development.”
Pernia said the TRO covered only
government agencies, and the Executive Order provides for collaborations with
civil society and the private sector.
“There might be some municipalities
or local governments that can... get around the TRO by letting NGOs implement the RPRH Law because the private sector is not covered
by the TRO,” said Pernia.
Pernia also said that “the
government cannot continue to tolerate this delay in judgment” and they are
hoping the TRO would be lifted.
Health Secretary Dr. Paulyn Ubial
also stated that they had filed a motion for reconsideration for the TRO at the
Supreme Court.
She said she was “very happy” to
announce that the order had been signed.
“So that means that we really have
to reach out to all couples so that they will be provided services, so that
they can practice the number of children that they desire and the spacing that
it would need,” said Ubial.
President Rody Duterte To Provide Funds, Support Modern Family Planning For The Poor
Reviewed by Yen
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January 12, 2017
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