9 out of 10 Pinoys favor birth control

The results of the Pulse Asia Survey re: Family Planning et. al. was published in three (3) major newspapers, the Manila Times, The Philippine Star and The Philippine Daily Inquirer. In the latter, which is the number one newspaper read in the country, having the largest circulation nationwide as well, said article was in the front page.

The article highlights the fact that about 89% of Filipinos want the government to pay for family planning measures including medication, intra-uterine devices, condoms, ligation and vasectomies.

"Almost all Filipinos surveyed (92 percent) described family planning as important, with 5 percent undecided and only 2 percent saying it was unimportant.

Family planning has been a touchy issue among candidates. Leaders of the Catholic Church, the religion of 81 percent of the population, condemn birth control. As of 2000, there were over 60 million Roman Catholics in the country. The country’s population is projected to hit 88.7 million this year, according to data from the National Statistics Office.

The Pulse Asia survey asked how important it was for a candidate in this year’s election to include family planning in his/her plan of action and found that 74 percent of respondents in Metro Manila said it was “important.” The rest of Luzon—some 83 percent—also said it was important, as did 72 percent in Mindanao and 71 percent in the Visayas.

Read the full article here.

In an earlier report as published in the Manila Standard, The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has urged all candidates (for this year's elections) to uphold women’s rights and protect them from all forms of discrimination.

Suneeta Mukherjee, UNFPA resident representative in the Philippines, announced that the agency would gather together senatorial, congressional and local candidates to a forum and hear them spell out their stand on issues about women.

Clara Rita Padilla, executive director of EnGenderRights, said the women’s rights activists wanted to hear the candidates expound their views on women’s rights. “We want to hear them [candidates] state their position on prevailing issues such as access to the full range of contraceptive methods including emergency contraception, access to safe and legal abortion, sexual education for adolescents, skills and education for women in prostitution, legalization of divorce, repeal of discriminatory Muslim Code provisions and lesbian rights.”

Based on the UNFPA report, there are an estimated 201 million women worldwide who wanted to postpone or delay childbearing, but do not have access to family planning. Closing the gap so that every woman at risk of unintended pregnancy has access to modern contraceptives would cost US$3.9 billion more per year.

Point to ponder

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. –Albert Einstein

High Birth rate = Lack of Classrooms

Last March 25, 2007 (Sunday), an article by Michael Lim Ubac was published in Inquirer. This article is short but very relevant that it had to be blogged... =) Read on...

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High birth rate = classroom lack’
By Michael Lim Ubac, Inquirer

Last updated 02:41am (Mla time) 03/25/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- As long as population growth is not reined in, government will never be able to wipe out classroom backlogs, according to Education Secretary Jesli Lapus. At the roundtable discussion with President Macapagal-Arroyo on the issues of hunger and poverty on Thursday, the education chief pointed to the relevance of population management in solving the perennial classroom shortage.

“Every minute, four babies are born. In my limited point of view on this classroom shortage, it’s like every 10 minutes, I’m short one classroom,” said Lapus. The projected population growth for 2007 is 8.7 million based on an annual growth rate of 2 percent. This places the current Philippine population at 88.7 million.

President Arroyo, however, has frowned on proposals to intensify birth control measures in the face of stiff opposition from the Catholic Church. She then shifted the discussion to her administration’s increased budget for education. She said the government had money to build 14,000 classrooms this year. She also talked about “ladderized education” in which high school students are encouraged to take up vocational courses instead of going on to college. “We all know that even if a child is not that bright, among the great Filipino dream(s) of parents is (for their children) to have a college education,” she said.

The President said blue-collar jobs like welding and butchering animals were not only in-demand but were also high-paying jobs abroad. “We really need more technical people than management people. College is usually for management people,” Ms Arroyo said. Lapus stressed that as the National Career Assessment Examination taken last month showed, more than half of the 1.3 million senior high school students in both the public and private schools did not qualify for a college education.

“There’s really a mismatch,” said Lapus, because most Filipinos want a college diploma. “So we have 1.1 million college graduates who are jobless, but we have 650,000 jobs unfilled.”

GMA accepts SWS poll results, releases P500M to stem hunger

Ok, it's good that PGMA acknowledges that there exists a high incidence of poverty and hunger and budget has been released for "programs" addressing the concern. However, these actions are still "band-aid" initiatives in addressing the issue. Eradication of Extreme Poverty and Hunger is the first of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan puts it: "The Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly the Eradication of Extreme Poverty and Hunger cannot be achieve if questions of Population and Reproductive Health are not squarely addressed."

It's basic - in a family where there are more mouths to feed, the lesser food each mouth receives.

If the government is serious in its mission, access to RH care and services and a comprehensive population management program/policy must be passed and implemented soon before every Filipino "miss meals"; not because we are too busy, but simply because we have to, and there's nothing we can do about it.
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GMA accepts SWS poll results, releases P500M to stem hunger
By Juliet Labog-Javellana
Inquirer Breaking News: Last updated 06:13pm (Mla time) 03/24/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has finally accepted the results of the survey on hunger by the Social Weather Stations and ordered the release of P500 million for "emergency hunger mitigation'' in areas found to have a high incidence of hunger among the people.

After questioning the SWS survey on hunger, which showed that one in every five Filipino families or 3.4 million households have gone hungry at least once in the last three months, the President apparently decided to confront the problem.

Presidential Management Staff chief Cerge Remonde said in an announcement he made on a government radio station Saturday that the President ordered the release of the money after convening the National Nutrition Council in Malacañang on Friday.

Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. said that with the signing of the P1.126 trillion 2007 national budget, the government is now ready to release P10 billion for the rehabilitation of typhoon-ravaged areas in Bicol, Southern Tagalog, and some parts of the Visayas.

The President ordered the release of P500 million for the food-for-school, food-for-work, and for the feeding programs of parishes and non-governmental organizations, Remonde said. He said the program would benefit areas identified by the SWS as having a high incidence of hunger, mostly in Metro Manila.

Arroyo said in her roundtable forum Saturday that the government's barangay (village) food terminals, or "bagsakan'' centers, where the poor can avail themselves of lower-priced food and other basic commodities, would benefit some 200,000 of 700,000 hungry families in Metro Manila by next month.

“The result of the SWS survey is a wake-up call (for the administration) because the economy is really doing well. For the President, what is the use of the economy doing good if people are hungry,” Remonde said in a phone interview with the Inquirer.

According to Remonde, during the two-hour NNC meeting at Malacanang's Aguinaldo Room, some Cabinet members continued to question the veracity of the SWS findings during Friday’s two-hour meeting of the National Nutrition Council at Malacanang's Aguinaldo Room. The February 24 to 27 SWS survey also found that the problem of hunger worsened in Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon.

"While there are some Cabinet members who questioned the survey, the President said, `Let's not quibble over that. As long as there's one person who is hungry the government should do something about that,''' Remonde said.

"She cracked the whip on all the frontline agencies, including the Department of Agriculture, to boost food production,'' Remonde said.

Among those called to Friday’s meeting were the secretaries of agriculture, social welfare and development, health, trade and industry, and education, Remonde said.

He said the President designated Health Secretary Francisco Duque III as her point man to oversee the implementation of the "emergency hunger mitigation'' program.

Remonde said the government intervention would be through the food-for-school program, where bags of rice and other food items are given to school children as an incentive to their attending school; the food-for-work program where the poor and unemployed are hired by the government to sweep the streets and do other community work; and the food-for-parishes program of the Catholic Church and other religious groups and organizations serving meals to children or adults in various parts of Metro Manila.

While Remonde said the President ordered the emergency hunger mitigation program in response to the SWS survey, the President herself seemed to doubt the SWS findings in Metro Manila.

After the SWS survey came out, Arroyo said the incidence of hunger could also be attributed to the "spending pattern'' of the people, whom she asked to "spend on the basics first'' before spending on luxuries. A day later, she questioned the question posed by the SWS to its respondents, saying she herself had experienced hunger at least once.

GMA says self-rated poverty lowest since Marcos era

culled from: www.abs-cbnnews.com

The Philippine Star-Marvin Sy

President Arroyo argued on Friday that, while self-rated poverty has not gone down since the last survey in November, it is still the lowest among the five administrations since Marcos.
Interviewed by the Japanese Jiji Press at Malacañang, the President said her administration’s efforts in reducing poverty have resulted in the lowest SRP since 1983.

"Yes, it has not gone down from the last survey but if you look at five administrations, it’s the lowest," the President said. She said her vision for the country extends beyond her term in such a way that, by 2020, the Philippines will be a first world country: "By that time we would have dramatically reduced poverty."

In a statement, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said the "official, concrete data on poverty incidence show a picture that is improving for each passing year." Malacañang data show that the average SRP rate has declined from 64.5 percent during the tenure of ousted President Ferdinand Marcos to 63.4 percent under Corazon Aquino, 62.2 percent under Fidel Ramos, 59.56 percent with Joseph Estrada and 57.32 percent under the Arroyo administration.

Poverty incidence, on the other hand, has gone down from 27.2 percent of families in 2000 to 23 percent in 2006, according to the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB). Cabinet secretary Ricardo Saludo said that, in terms of individuals, the decline from 27.2 percent to 23 percent represents a reduction of 5.5 million from the ranks of poor Filipinos, meaning 19.9 million families were affected by poverty in 2006.

Saludo added that, under the Medium Term Philippine Development Plan, the government intends to reduce the number of poor families to 16.8 million by 2010. Based on the Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey on self-rated poverty, the nationwide figures on self-rated poverty showed little change from 52 percent in November last year to 53 percent in February this year.

Read the rest of the article here.