Philippine local governments urged to enact reproductive Health Measures

ABS-CBN News ^ | July 8,2009 | Lilita Balane

[LadyDoc]

MANILA - Local governments should come up with their own reproductive health policies to address the growing number of mothers dying from pregnancy-related complications, because the national government is obviously not keen on doing something about it.

Aurora Governor Bellaflor Angara-Castillo, a former congresswoman, on Wednesday called on local officials that it’s their constituents who are suffering while Congress sits on the reproductive health (RH) bill.

She said it is now time for the local government units (LGUs) to enact ordinances that would take the place of a national RH law.

Among the LGUs that have passed ordinances on reproductive health programs are the provinces of Aurora, Isabela, Ifugao, and Sulu. Olongapo City and Quezon City have their RH ordinances in place, while Makati City is drafting its own.

“If we are waiting for something from the national level, let’s not waste our time. Let’s go to the local level,” Castillo said at a policy forum on the RH bill organized by the Philippine Legislators' Committee on Population and Development Foundation.... According to Castillo, the USAID stopped supporting the population control program of the DOH when it realized that the national government was not responding to the need for a more comprehensive measure to address the country’s growing population...

Without the national government’s support, Castillo said, LGUs with RH ordinance suffer from dearth of funding, since budget that could go to livelihood projects is sometimes re-aligned to the RH program. (Newsbreak)

[LadyDoc]

a couple notes.

The areas with "reproductive health" programs (pushing contraception) have minority populations: Muslim or (Iflugo region) tribal.

Second, a lot of money goes into the pockets of the politicians: The "average" take is 20 percent of any program. Not only would more money mean more money for them, but if the politicians stopped stealing, maybe the people wouldn't be so poor.

Three: People die because there are no midwives in the villages, or they cost too much. They are busy pushing pills but not improving medical care.

Four: I can buy condoms at the local grocery store. If there is a market, believe me some private vendor will buy up some and sell them in the local open air market.

If the pill is needed, women could go to a private clinic.

This is actually about intimidating people using public clinics into using chemical forms of birth control.