The UN supports population planning

Lest pro-lifers have a field day jumping to premature conclusions that the United Nations is stopping giving support to family planning programs in the Philippines, let me quote a report from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) information and communication office in Manila stating the contrary.

According to the report, the UN “will continue to support the Philippine government in its efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, particularly to achieve targets to reduce maternal deaths and ensure universal access to reproductive health, including family planning. “These targets remain top priorities of the government and the UN’s assistance as these are among the targets least likely to be achieved by 2015.”

The report continues: “The United Nations continues to support the government’s commitment for a life of health and dignity of all Filipinos by ensuring that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV and AIDS, and women and girls are treated with dignity and respect.

“In keeping with President Aquino’s universal health care agenda, the UN will continue to assist the government to promote, protect and fulfill every Filipino’s right to freely decide on the timing, number and spacing of their children, with the support of other development partners.”

The report cites global evidence showing that up to 30 percent of maternal deaths and as much as 20 percent of infant deaths can be averted by ensuring access to voluntary family planning, including access to contraceptives. The two other strategies to reduce maternal deaths are provision of skilled birth attendants at birth and access to life-saving services during delivery, which are also part of the UN’s development assistance in the Philippines. In recognition of government’s renewed efforts to ensure that women and girls, especially the poor and marginalized, do not die of preventable causes during pregnancy and childbirth, the UN has increased and will sustain its support to maternal and neonatal health program in the Philippines, says the report.

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Sadness crept into my heart as I viewed my favorite aunt’s remains which were shipped from San Jose, Ca., to Manila last week. At the wake held at the Paz Funeral Parlor in Paranaque before her remains were interred Sunday morning, relatives and close friends of the family streamed into the chapel to pay their last respects to a lady whose warmth, generosity and lightheartedness lit up their lives. I was one of the beneficiaries of her love and gentleness.

Corazon Lagasca Suarez was born in Manila on June 28, 1924 to Elias Lagasca and Matilde “Lola Tinding” Madrid. The sixth among seven children, she married Angel “Butch” Suarez on April 1, 1945, during the Liberation period. They were blessed with seven children, who gave them in turn, 11 grandchildren and four great grandchildren.   

Her eldest children are Victor, now retired Philippine Navy commodore; Daniel, a chemical engineer based in Canada, and Yolanda, married to Conrado B. Estrella, who lives in Freemont, Ca. The fourth is Ivan, a mechanical engineer, followed by Herman, a geodetic engineer who practices civil CAD design with HDR Engineering Inc. also in Ca. The sixth is Marilou S. Morrell, customer service manager of SM-Cebu for the last 18 years. The youngest is Maximo.

The memorial service at the Funenaria Paz chapel was officiated by Tia Cora’s nephew, the Rev. Nestor Lagasca. Before her remains were flown over to Manila, a “celebration of life” service was held at the Chapel of the Chimes in Hayward, Ca.; with another nephew, Nathaniel Lagasca, as officiating pastor.

Tia Cora died in a home for the elderly in California; but she did not live a lonely life then, as friends were constantly with her, and she sewed dresses and gowns for them as well as for her older sister, Olivia, who is staying in a home for senior citizens a few blocks from where Cora lived. Cora had fun, joined beauty contests, and won such titles as Mrs. Valentine, Mrs. Visayas, and Mrs. Mindanao. She went out ballroom dancing with her friends, and she took painting lessons. On display at the wake in Paranaque were some of her paintings in watercolor - of landscapes and flowers and animals. Her daughter Marilou told me her mother made a huge collage of the pictures of her family which she painstakingly glued together.

At the wake last Sunday, I beheld her splendor, smiling calmly, wearing a lovely silver gown she had sewn to wear at another beauty contest. I remembered the gown she sewed for me when I married her oldest nephew, Mauricio Jr. (now deceased), son of her sister Olivia. It was a lovely work of art, with pearls and silver threads tracing designs in an Indian dress material.

Her children spoke of their mother’s courage. She was 17, during the Japanese Occupation, and was taking up Nippongo lessons upon the prodding of her older brother Antonio or “Momo.” She learned the language so well that she was hired to be a telephone operator. It so happened that Momo was mistaken for a guerilla soldier. When Cora learned about this, she pleaded with the Japanese officer to spare her brother, who, she said, was no enemy, as he in fact had asked her to learn to speak Nippongo. The officer believed her, and Momo was saved from being incarcerated or tortured to death.

Marilou, Tia Cora’s livewire daughter married to Charlie James Morrell, who operates a telephone exchange system in some parts of the Visayas and Mindanao, said her mother had taken formal schooling in tailoring and cosmetology in her mid 30s. In the mid-60s, she put up Marilanda’s Dress Shop (named after her two daughters) along the busy Ramon Magsaysay boulevard in Sta. Mesa where the family lived for 20 years before moving to a beach front apartment in Paranaque and finally to a house in Marikina. She lived in Cebu with Marilou’s growing family for two years before immigrating to the US in 1998.

The bright son Herman (or Butchie), recalled how well her mother cooked, and how Christmas and New Year’s Eve were special because of the food she prepared. She didn’t like leftovers, so she made sure she bought just enough food with her daily P5 marketing money. “How did I know?” Butchie asked.” Because I was always the one carrying her basket. It was from her that I learned to cook and bake at an early age. How she managed to be a good cook and attend to her dressmaking business is beyond me.”

Tia Cora’s daughters-in-law had tears in their eyes as they recalled the good things she did for them. Vic’s wife Susana (also called Golda) said she learned to cook Vic’s favorite, binagoongan with baboy and beans with pata, and cobweb stitching. Gina Magbanua, Ivan’s wife, recalled receiving a portable singer sewing machine, and how Tia Cora liked to “make pasyal, she always wanted to go around wearing pants and rubber shoes. She had style.”

Goodbye, Tia Cora. We’ll miss you. But we’re happy in the thought that you are happy with the Lord.”

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