In their article “Calling a Spade a Spade: Maternal Mortality as a Human Rights Violation”, Luisa Cabral and Morgan Stoffregen lamented that “being pregnant should not be a game of Russian roulette. But for too many women around the world, it is.”

The failure to protect maternal death violates a number of women’s fundamental human rights, including the rights to life, health, equality, information, freedom from discrimination and the right to decide the number and spacing of their children.

Millennium Development Goal 5, which aims to reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015, is the MDG least likely to be achieved.

In the Philippines, the Maternal Mortality Ratio was 209 per 100,000 live births in the early 90s. In 1998, MMR fell to 172 but has stagnated thereafter to 162 till 2006. At this pace of reduction, the target of reducing MMR to 52 by 2015 seems unattainable.

Cabral and Stoffregen concluded: “Half a million maternal deaths each year are more than an unfortunate tragedy – they are a scandalous social injustice. Fortunately, women’s right to survive pregnancy and childbirth is firmly protected under international law. The challenge facing the human rights community today is ensuring that governments protect this right.”

It is for the above unassailable reasons that the principal objective of the Philippines’ country plan is to approximate, if not achieve, the target of attaining MDG 5 on improvement of maternal health, and in the process also endeavor to achieve MDG 4 on the reduction of infant mortality.

In pursuit of this objective, we propose the following strategies in the Philippines:

1. Approval by September 2009 or at the latest before the end of the year of a law on reproductive health, family planning and population development by the House of Representatives and Senate of the Philippine Congress where the improvement of maternal health is included in the main agenda. Incidentally, UN Special Rapporteur Mr. Anand Grover has committed to issue an appeal to the Philippine Government for the immediate enactment of the RH bill. This would complement the repeated statements of support of the European Union for the passage of the RH bill.

2. Campaign for the appropriation and release of adequate funds for maternal health and reproductive health.

a. P2.0 billion is appropriated in the 2008 General Appropriations Act (GAA) for reproductive health and family planning. Demands by rural women and beneficiaries, through media and other related activities must be intensified in coordination with legislators and NGOs; and
b. Inclusion of at least P4.0 billion in the 2010 budget.

3. Since the Philippines will have Presidential, Congressional and Local elections in May 2010, it is proposed that policy issues on maternal health and RH be included in the platform of political parties and be made campaign issues so that candidates can make their stand before the electorate. Relevantly, surveys consistently show that majority of Filipino voters would elect candidates who have a pro-RH agenda and are willing to spend government funds for family planning and contraceptive commodities.

4. Support the effective implementation of the Department of Health’s program on Maternal, Newborn, Children’s Health and Nutrition (MNCHN) through:

a. Funding support for family planning, contraceptive use and skills training.
b. Review of the Midwifery Law to make it an effective instrument for the improvement of maternal health.
c. Pursue the program of one midwife per barangay or village or one midwife per 1,500 population whichever is viable or appropriate.
d. Conduct a maternal death audit by the Linangan ng mga Kababaihan (Likhaan), an NGO which has been at the forefront in advocating for reproductive health and the passage of the RH bills.
e. Conduct a congressional inquiry on the amounts and utilization by the Department of Health of government allocations and ODA funds for MNCHN.

5. Pursue the initiative on debt-for-MDG swap which ahs been formalized in Joint Resolution No. 39 filed on 29 July 2009 as a debt reduction strategy and resource generation plan to achieve MDGs 4 and 5.

6. Emphasis on the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and other regions with high Maternal Mortality Rates and low Contraceptive Prevalence Rates.

Tri-media, which is an indispensable partner of parliamentarians and civil society, has a role which cuts across all these strategies.

And it is hoped that media, in addition to writing and talking about the hapless victims of maternal mortality, should also report and comment about the perpetrators of maternal deaths like:

a. Flawed or deficient government policies;
b. Official culpability, if not criminal neglect; and
c. Purveyors of massive and malicious misinformation

Let us welcome the day when women go through the miracle of giving birth as truly a celebration of life.