Government and contraception

By Rina Jimenez-David - AT LARGE - Philippine Daily Inquirer

If you listen to officials of the waning Arroyo administration, outgoing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo included, you’d get the impression that Filipino women have no problem planning their families or getting their hands on the contraceptives they need.

To sum up their arguments, they say that contraceptives are legal in the Philippines, in fact, women and couples need only visit their local health centers where they can get them either for free or at subsidized prices. True, ever since President Arroyo took office, no national funds have been earmarked for the purchase of family planning supplies. But this is only because health services have been devolved to local government units, who have been given the responsibility to buy contraceptives and make these available to the public.

But these arguments mask several uncomfortable “truths.” A study titled “Facts on Barriers to Contraceptive Use in the Philippines,” conducted by the Guttmacher Institute and local health advocacy group Likhaan, points out that over the past decade, contraceptive use has hardly increased among Filipino women. And yet, the study goes on, “women are having, on average, about one more child than they would like.” National surveys show that women aged 15-49 want to have 2.4 children but end up having, on average, 3.3. (Read full article here)