Leaders told to improve population programs for better economic recovery

MANILA - Programs aiming to control the population must continue even in the next administration, the Commission on Population and Development (POPCOM) said Wednesday, as experts bare a possible crisis due to unintended pregnancies.

“The population and social programs must be seen as part of the economic recovery,” Commission on Population and Development (POPCOM) Executive Director Dr. Juan Antonio Perez III said.

The incoming administration faces an economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbated by an outstanding 12.68 trillion pesos debt that the outgoing administration leaves behind.

Despite gaining ground in POPCOM’s population development goals, latest data still found the Philippines recorded 71 in every 1,000 Filipino women aged 15 through 49 went through unintended pregnancies between 2015 to 2019.

The 2022 State of the World Population Report (SWOP) found the country as part of a global “unseen crisis” on teenage pregnancies.

The report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) found that 36 in every 1,000 Filipino girls aged 15-19 gave birth in 2004-2020.

The 2022 SWOP titled “Seeing the Unseen: The case for action in the neglected crisis of unintended pregnancy” presented data that nearly half of all pregnancies worldwide, or about 121 million pregnancies are unintended.

"For these women the most life altering choice whether to get pregnant or not is not actually a choice,” UNFPA Country Representative tot he Philippines Dr. Leila Saiji Joudane said.

It also presented data where the Philippines joins Bangladesh, Benin, Chad, and Indonesia with “more than a fifth of first births to girls under the age of 18” were results of premarital conception.

"Some adolescents get formally married or enter informal unions as part of an emancipatory strategy; rather than seeing their own marriages as “forced,” they view them as a solution to the prohibition against premarital sex and romantic relationships, and even a way to escape violent conditions in the home.

"Yet these self-described voluntary marriages have many of the same harmful consequences of forced marriage, including accelerated and unsafe transitions to adult roles and responsibilities, including adolescent childbearing,” SWOP read.

POPCOM data also revealed that the Philippines ranked fourth among its Southeast Asian neighbors in terms of early childbirth rates: 171 live births from minors per day was recorded in 2019, 7 of these from young girls aged 10-14 years old.

"It‘s easy to say we’ll focus on economic recovery but forget the social side of population and development, we hope congress and the next administration can find a balance,” Perez said.

Perez was appointed Executive Director of POPCOM and Undersecretary for Population and Development under the outgoing Duterte administration. His tenure will end when President-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. assumes office.

Marcos Jr’s father, former president and late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos issued Presidential Decree 79 in 1972 which created POPCOM to improve the quality of life of all Filipinos and socio-economic progress through well-planned, healthy, and resilient families and communities.

During Perez’s tenure, POPCOM and its various family planning programs achieved its target of lowering the country’s fertility rate at 1.8 births per woman from 2.7 births per woman 5 years ago, according to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

• PH achieves low fertility rate target 3 years early, could mean economic growth

The country was also able to avert the 200,000 unintended pregnancies during the COVID-19 lockdowns, projected by a study from The University of the Philippines Population Institute and the United Nations Population Fund conducted due to a decline in access to family planning services.

“We averted that just by mobilizing LGUs and community workers, because they were the key during COVID lockdowns. They would deliver pills and condoms to family planning users and we tried to keep our clinics open,” Perez shared.

• Teen pregnancies in Philippines down by 13% in 2020

POPCOM reported women meeting with midwives in unusual places just to receive family planning services. Perez shared an account of a midwife who met a woman at a convenience store in Caloocan to receive her contraceptive injection.

“That was how it was during the COVID period: Unheralded heroes in the health system and women determined to get their services,” Perez said.

Strides in population development mean great opportunity for the country to enjoy a “demographic dividend,” or the economic growth experienced as a result of a change in its population structure.

But the lighter financial burden as a result of smaller families with fewer children can only be enjoyed when unmet needs such as housing, education, and opportunities for younger people are addressed, specifically by the next administration, Perez previously said.

• Popcom: More Filipinos driven into poverty amid COVID-19 pandemic

“The most important for the next elected president and new appointed government is to ensure that the Philippines seize this golden opportunity of reaping the demographic dividend. It means we need to continue to address young people and young girls, invest in their education, [secure] sexual and reproductive health rights, and avoid form of coercion and violence against the younger people,” Joudane said.

POPCOM and its partners agencies in population and development goals such as the Department of Social Welfare and Development are preparing transition plans to ensure the continued family planning programs to the next administration.

“We are lining up programs to provide technical assistance to local government units. The Filipino family has to be enhanced and strengthened… the transfer of knowledge, training and skills from the national agency to LGUs has to be ensured,” DSWD Undersecretary Luzviminda Ilagan said.

Outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte has made the curbing teen pregnancies a national priority.

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"Even our economic managers had dubbed adolescent pregnancy as a ‘national social emergency.’ Yet the latest SWOP report reveals that the Philippines has yet to fully untangle the several complex layers of this issue that exacerbate the situation,” Philippine Legislators' Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD) Executive Director Romeo Dongeto said.

While several laws are in place to secure access to sexual and reproductive health, Dongeto said much needs to be understood and faced head on by policy makers, civic leaders, and whole of society to reach a future "where every pregnancy is wanted."