Private sector initiatives to promote family planning

In the raging public debate over the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill being passionately fought in the halls of Congress, it would be well advised that opposing sides give the people the total picture of this proposed legislation.

As it is, the protracted debate at the 15th Congress has even evolved into the supposed “watering down” of the RH bill version of the House of Representatives. Its principal author and sponsor, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, of course, vehemently doused such claims, saying the basic features of the RH bill are still intact. Lagman described the compromise version as crafted to be more acceptable to its opponents in and out of Congress. So when sessions resume on November 5, Lagman pointed out, they expect smoother deliberations on the RH bill.

While the RH bill has become a political football in both chambers of Congress, a major event called “London Summit on Family Planning” took place in July 11 this year. The London Summit gathered more than 150 leaders from donor and developing countries all over the world as well as representatives from international agencies, civil society, foundations and the private sector in support of voluntary family planning services.

The London Summit happened while UK’s capital city was also the center of world attention as the venue of the summer Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth ll who celebrated her 60th anniversary on the British throne. On this note, British ambassador to the Philippines Stephen Lillie formally announced yesterday the holding of a similar event dubbed as the “Manila Summit on Family Planning in the Business Sector” on November 15 at the Philippine International Convention Center.

Ambassador Lillie disclosed the forthcoming Manila Summit is patterned after the London Summit that the British government, through its Department for International Development, co-hosted along with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Lillie noted the London Summit called for unprecedented global political commitments and resources to enable an additional 120 million women and girls in the world’s poorest countries to be given access to contraceptives by year 2020.

Quoting results of the London Summit, Lillie said reaching this goal in 2020 could result in over 200,000 fewer women and girls dying in pregnancy and childbirth and nearly three million fewer infants dying in their first year of life in developing countries like the Philippines.

The global community that participated in the London Summit also made commitments to sustain coverage for the estimated 260 million women in these developing countries who are currently using contraceptives as of last June. By 2020, the goal of the London Summit is to deliver contraceptives, family planning information and services to a total of 380 million women and girls in developing countries.

With this London Summit background, the British ambassador invited Filipino business leaders to a breakfast meeting yesterday at the Mandarin Hotel Ballroom in Makati City to drum up interest, publicity and participation to the Manila Summit next month.

The breakfast meeting was also attended by UNFPA resident representative Ugochi Daniels, and former Foreign Affairs Secretary Roberto Romulo, chairman of Zuellig Family Foundation who are co-organizers of the Manila Summit.

Also at the meeting were officials from the Department of Health (DOH) led by Secretary Dr. Enrique Ona, Donald Dee as vice chairman of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) and also representing the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP); Eduardo Francisco, president of the Management Association of the Philippines; Yoly Villanueva-Ong of Campaigns and Grey, among some of the familiar faces I saw yesterday.

According to the DOH Secretary, only about one in three married women, or 34 percent are able to practice modern and effective means of family planning in the Philippines. Around six million Filipino women are estimated to have “unmet need” for modern family planning services, either for birth spacing or for limiting births, Ona added. About half a million of these women, he rued, end up with unintended pregnancies that have higher likelihood of complications during pregnancy and delivery.

This lack of access to family planning services and information is partly the reason why poor Filipino women continue to have more children than they intended, Ona cited. The one-day Manila Summit could fill the gap in services that the government could not deliver.

The Manila Summit is the first of its kind to be held where private business groups will present and share their best practices and experiences, templates of business models on family planning and family health initiatives in workplaces, in workers’ communities, or as corporate social responsibility programs of their respective companies.

President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III is invited to give the keynote address at the Manila Summit which Lillie said is intended “to signal support from the highest level” of government on this private sector-led initiative to promote family planning services at the workplaces of Filipino women.

At this stage, the President’s attendance to the Manila Summit is still tentative. With the RH bill becoming too hot a potato for the 52-year-old bachelor President, his attendance in this gathering — where the promotion of the use of contraceptives will definitely come up — may yet become also an issue.

The buzzword in yesterday’s organizational meeting for the Manila Summit was it pays good dividends in terms of greater productivity and savings to business if they invest on their own family planning services like giving out condoms to their workers. But women workers should primarily be the intended beneficiaries of this undertaking, as one impassioned employer aptly put it, not in terms of peso signs as much as gains of the business investing on family planning services.