The link between health and family planning efforts in the Philippines goes back to the beginnings of the National Population Program. In this interview, Dr. Dumindin of the Ministry of Health (MOh) discusses the impact of family planning on health. The family planning program of the MOH, since its inception in 1970, has undergone expansion and taken new initiatives and directions to meet the changing needs of the target clientele. Family planning information, education, and motivation is provided and maintained during routine prenatal, natal, and postnatal clinic and field activities. As of January 1986, the MOH had a total of 2100 clinics--rural health units, medical centers, hospitals, mobile clinics, and special clinics--all over the country. It is estimated that the Ministry's family planning activities have averted around a million births. It is hoped to extend the coverage of the programs to areas that have not been reached before, through further community involvement, by enlisting the participation of more workers in the community, training them on integrated health and family planning services, setting up more service facilities and clinic extensions, and by improving contraceptive use-effectiveness. Hopefully, the Philippine people will become less program-dependent and more self-motivated, and they will recognize the need for birth spacing, birth limiting, and total health care--not as suggested from the outside, but coming from within themselves.
This article examines the existing laws and pending bills that pertain to the Philippine Population Program. The Presidential Decree No. 79 of 1972 authorized the nationwide promotion of all acceptable contraceptive methods and the use of clinics, pharmacies, and commercial distribution channels for the purpose. Up to the 1960s, importation of materials intended to prevent human conception was prohibited under the Philippine Tariff and Customs Code. Abortion is still classified as a crime under the Revised Penal Code; the Tariff and Customs Code prohibits the importation of articles to be used for unlawful abortion. There is a move at the Batasan to raise the minimum age for marriage. Divorce is not allowed in the Philippines, except among Muslims. Legal separation is allowed, where each spouse may live separately from the other but may not remarry while the other is still alive. The population program, in curbing population growth, hopes to somehow alleviate the poverty situation and the many problems it breeds, including child exploitation. Laws on public welfare and social security complement population efforts in the same way that child welfare laws do. Overall, it is hoped that many more moves will be taken to strengthen the family, protect and enrich the child, and give everyone a chance to develop and earn a decent living.
Better education of Philippine couples and exposure to good counseling before marriage are 2 major factors that have positively affected the performance of the 9 year old Premarriage Counseling Program (PMCP). According to the study, better educated couples about to marry, and couples who had previous guidance from premarriage counselors scored higher than others on a family planning Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practice (KAP) test. A study was conducted to evaluate the program's effectiveness. Broadly, all those involved in the PMCP agreed that it contributed a large share to the slowing down of the country's population growth and favored the continuation of the program. The 7 major problems of the program discussed are: 1) poor coordination and cooperation among the participating agencies existed in some areas from the top level of the hierarchy to the lowest level, 2) lack of logistic support to enable the staff to perform their respective responsibilities, 3) lack of discipline and skill among counselors in performing their responsibilities, 4) lack of interest among the counselees, 5) an inadequate database for monitoring and evaluating, 6) reliance on a "padrino" to be exempted from going through premarriage counseling sessions, and 7) too much focus on family planning and marriage and relationships during premarriage counseling sessions. Recommendations include 1) program heads should reassess the program's subject matter, and 2) the subject matter of premarriage counseling sessions should be limited to thorough discussions of family planning, marriage, and relationships.
The Commission of Population (Popcom), together with the Philippine Ministry of Local Government ond the National Economic and Development Authority devised a multiagency project entitled "Population, Local Development and Local Administration." Expected to improve the capabilities of mayors in fulfilling their new roles, the project called for holding consultative conferences with town mayors as participants. From March to november 1985, the sponsoring agencies conducted 12 consultative conferences for 281 municipal mayors and 13 representatives throughout the country. Mayors learned that they are empowered to implement the local population program and that the population workers, being local coordinators of the population program, should be reporting to them. The mayors' feedback given at the conferences made some officials realize that there are local government units that may not be able to fully absorb the full-time outreach workers. To help implement population programs, the mayors suggested fiscal reforms. Overall, the conferences gave the mayors a sense of importance.
The 2nd International Conference on Population held in Mexico City in 1984 had 3 main objectives: 1) to adopt the plan to changing demographic situations, 2) to enlarge the plan's scope so it can consider new views that have emerged since Bucharest, and 3) to reinforce the plan's operational aspects so that the plan can be applied more effectively. The Mexico conference had significant differences with the Bucharest gathering: 1) greater participation of developing countries, 2) clarification of the role of population and family planning in development, and 3) recognition of the status of women in development. Governments of many developing countries argue that they cannot wait for their countries to modernize sufficiently enough to stabilize their population levels. Participants in the Mexico conference agreed that family planning programs have been successful in reducing fertility at relatively low cost. The goal of a development-oriented population policy is to improve the people's standard of living by lowering fertility rates, improving health conditions and life expectancy, improving population distribution, and adopting sound economic policies. The overall objective of population policy should not be confined only to growth, distribution, and other demographic aspects; it is imperative that human life and human dignity be upheld.
