Pinoys to reach 101.4 M this year

MANILA, Philippines - The country’s population is expected to hit 101.4 million in the middle of 2015 and the Department of Health (DOH) and Commission on Population (PopCom) plan to introduce a new artificial method of family planning to improve the dependency ratio in the country.

“Right now our population is 100.7 million or 100.8 million. But by mid-2015, it will be around 101.4 million. So the big efforts of the DOH and PopCom will be on the implementation of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health (RPRH) law this year and part of 2016,” PopCom executive director Juan Antonio Perez III told The STAR yesterday.

Dependency ratio pertains to the number of working people and their dependents.

Perez said the goal is to decrease the country’s total fertility rate from the current three percent, or three children per woman, to 2.1 percent, or two kids per woman.

“We are still the highest in Southeast Asia… (Our aim is that) each woman will have around two children. That is the replacement rate. And at that rate, the dependency ratio will improve in the next few years,” he explained.

He noted that while the country’s population growth rate of 1.9 percent is going down, it is declining at a very slow pace.

Perez said that part of the campaign is to include “subdermal implants” in the family planning program.

A subdermal implant is a flexible plastic rod about the size of a matchstick that releases the hormone progestin into the body.

The subdermal implant is inserted into a woman’s upper arm to suppress ovulation for three years. If a woman wants to get pregnant, the implant will simply be removed.

The implants will be included in the list of contraceptives being supplied and supported by the DOH and PoPCom, namely injectables, pills and condoms.

Perez said the DOH and PoPCom would also scale up the promotion of tubal ligation, vasectomy methods and three natural scientific family planning methods: lactational amenorrhea based on breast milk production, standard days method, and the Billings ovulation method.

The agencies do not promote calendar and withdrawal methods and “people who are on those methods will be encouraged to move to scientific methods.”

Due to the rising trend in teenage pregnancy, a campaign on comprehensive sexuality education will also be strengthened among the youth.

This will be done with Department of Education, Department of Social Welfare and Development and with other government agencies and civil society groups, Perez said.