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                                                                Keynote Speech of
                                                             Hon. Edcel C. Lagman
                                                   Representative, 1st District of Albay
                                            Minority Floor Leader, House of Representatives
                                                Co-Chairperson, PLCPD Board of Trustees

                                                                 on the occasion of
                                         The Third National Multisectoral Policy Conference
                                                           on Human Development
                                                 17-18 August 2010, Crowne Plaza Galleria

 

              It was only yesterday afternoon when the Office of the President sent its regrets to PLCPD that President Benigno Aquino would be unable to come to deliver the Keynote Address. And no administration official was deputized to represent the President.

              President Aquino must be preoccupied with pressing matters of State. This we can fully understand, although we would have appreciated an earlier demurrer.

              When I agreed at the eleventh hour to deliver the Keynote Address, I made it categorical that I was not pitching in for the President. Neither do I have the authority nor inclination to do just that.

              The National Multi-Sectoral Policy Conference on Human Development, now on its third conference after the March 2005 and August 2007 sessions, is of overriding importance in our common and continuing pursuit of the population and development agenda. A conference of this import should not be missed by policy initiators, makers and implementers as well as by civil society and non-government organizations representing the disadvantaged beneficiaries of progressive policies.

              It is significant to note that each Conference is convened proximate to the opening of a new Congress, as much as possible. This is so because the output of the Conference, which is the people’s legislative agenda, is submitted to the Congress as the national policymaking department of the government.

              The Conference in August 2007 can claim a laudable measure of success with the enactment of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (RA 9700), Magna Carta of Women (RA 9710), Anti-Torture Law (RA 9745), Renewable Energy Law (RA 9513), and the Cheaper Medicines Act (RA 9502).



              We keenly anticipate that the legislative agenda which this third Conference will formulate and endorse will also receive a positive response from the Congress, particularly because we are staging this Conference past the mid-point of the
Millennium Development Goals or five years before the 2015 deadline.

              The Philippine Mid-Term Report on the MDGs candidly admitted that the targets for improving maternal health (or reducing maternal deaths) and increasing access to reproductive health services will most likely be unmet. The decline in number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births has slowed down and virtually stood still from 209 deaths in 1993 to 162 deaths in 2006. This is a far cry from the target of 52 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2015.  As for the access to reproductive health information and services, the improvement was at a very modest rate for currently married women ages 15-49, from 49 percent in 2001 to 50.6 percent in 2006.  This is way below the target rate of 80 percent access by 2015.

               Twenty-two percent of married Filipino women have an unmet need for family planning services (2008 National Demographic and Health Survey), an increase by more than one-third since the 2003 NDHS. Moreover, 44% of the pregnancies in the poorest quintile are unwanted and among the poorest women who would like to avoid pregnancy, at least 41% do not use any contraceptive method because of lack of information or access. (Family Planning Survey 2006). The 2008 NDHS also reveals that only 67% of all births in the Philippines are planned. The rest are either mistimed or unwanted.

               This brings us to the undeniable relevance of the enactment of our signature proposed legislation, the reproductive health law on the MDGs. It is important to underscore that majority of the MDGs are directly linked to reproductive health and family planning.

 
                                                            RH and Goals 4 and 5 on maternal 
                                                               and child health and survival

               Reproductive health also includes maternal, infant and child health and nutrition which are crucial to ensuring the health of mothers and infants and in the reduction of maternal and infant mortality.

               Family planning is central to maternal and child health because the WHO states that “birth-to-pregnancy (BTP) intervals of six months or shorter are associated with elevated risks of maternal mortality” and “BTP intervals of 18 months or shorter are associated with elevated risk of infant, neonatal and perinatal mortality, low birth weight, small size for gestational age, and pre-term delivery.”

               The WHO underscores that 99% of all maternal deaths happen in developing countries like the Philippines. This is why a national policy on reproductive health is crucial in order to drastically lower maternal mortality rates in the country.

               The worst inequity is maternal death. The miracle of life should not result in the death of a woman. Although pregnancy is not a disease, it is ironic that 500,000 women die annually worldwide of causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. In the Philippines, 11 women die daily of such causes.

              The RH bill is also very clearly anti-abortion. Its objective is to ensure that women and couples have access to all legal, medically-safe and effective methods of family planning in order to prevent unplanned pregnancies which are the ones usually aborted.

              Contraceptive use and abortion have an inverse correlation. The more women use effective contraception, the less likely they have unwanted pregnancies that will be terminated through abortion. Research by the Guttmacher Institute also reveals that the use of contraceptives can reduce abortion rates by 85%. 

                                                    RH and Goals 2 and 3 on universal primary 
                                                            education and gender equality

                In the Philippines, childcare is still considered primarily the role of mothers and/or older sisters. Therefore, it is not uncommon for girls to drop out of school because they are forced to care for siblings as the family size continues to expand. Family planning, as an essential element of reproductive health, will help ensure gender parity in school and foreclose this inequity being foisted on girls.

               Another element of RH is the elimination of violence against women which will not only promote the basic human right to live a life free of violence but is also central to achieving gender equality.

               Moreover, family planning will lead to bigger investments in health and education, improved quality of childcare and more educational and employment opportunities for women. All these will go a long way in achieving Goal 2 on universal primary education and Goal 3 on promoting gender equality. 

                                             RH and Goals 6 and 7 on HIV-AIDS and the environment

                Still another element of reproductive health is the prevention of HIV-AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Renewed efforts to curb the spread of HIV-AIDS and other STDs as advocated in the RH bill will help government achieve part of Goal No. 6 on combating HIV-AIDS.

                Slower population growth through family planning will also relieve the strain that a burgeoning population exerts on an environment increasingly threatened by human activity and will help us attain Goal No. 7 on environmental sustainability. 

                                                   RH and Goal No. 1 on poverty and hunger

                Guaranteeing the right of women and couples to reproductive self-determination through the family planning method of their choice will also ultimately help government achieve Goal No. 1 on the eradication of hunger and poverty.

               A decline in fertility rates will help open a demographic window of economic opportunity similar to what happened in South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. With fewer dependent children relative to the working-age population, these countries made additional investments on health, education, food security and other basic social services which spurred economic growth and helped reduce poverty.

               Clearly, by promoting and protecting the right to reproductive health, government would have a better chance of achieving the MDGs, specifically the goals pertaining to the alleviation of hunger and poverty; improved access to primary education; better health for mothers; reduction of infant deaths; holding back the spread of HIV-AIDS; and the preservation of our fragile environment.

                                                  RH is an Indispensable Development Tool

               The empirical nexus between reproductive health and sustainable human development is consistently and clearly established.

               According to the UN State of the World Population Report 2002, “family planning and reproductive health are essential to reducing poverty”. The report declares that “countries that invest in reproductive health and family planning and in women's development register slower population growth and faster economic growth”.

              The annual UN Human Development Studies also show that countries with higher population growth will invariably score lower on important aspects of human development such as income, physical and emotional well-being, life expectancy, literacy and employment.

              In 2008, the Philippines, as the 12th most populous country, placed No. 84 out 171 countries in the Human Development Index rankings made annually by the United Nations. The following year, we were down to No. 90. This year, 2010, we slipped even further to the 105th slot.

               In a recent study of poverty and its causes in the Philippines, the Asian Development Bank listed an expanding population is one of the major causes of poverty in the country.

               Data from the NSO for over a decade demonstrates that there is indeed greater incidence of poverty in larger families. Large families are prone to poverty with 57.3% of Filipino families with seven children mired in poverty while only 23.8% of families having two children live below the poverty threshold.

               Moreover, large family size has been documented to perpetuate poverty across generations.

               Population and development are inexorably linked. Perforce, the issue on population must be integral to the development agenda. No policy on sustainable human development can be viable and achievable without confronting and resolving the problem of an inordinate population growth rate.

               A national and comprehensive rights-based, health-oriented and development-driven reproductive health law is just as important to the attainment of sustainable human development as good governance, the eradication of graft and corruption and the redistribution of wealth.

               While it is conceded that the Philippines will be unable to fully achieve the MDGs on improvement of maternal health and access to reproductive health information and services, this Conference should be able to recommend how the country can bridge the gap between the committed goals and what we can endeavor to achieve given the relevant and effective legislation and policy direction.

               Thank you so much for this opportunity to participate in this meaningful and certainly productive Conference.