FILE. INQUIRER/MARIANNE BERMUDEZ
MANILA, Philippines — Over eight million women and men have availed of modern family planning services in 2020, the Commission on Population and Development (PopCom) said Monday, a slight increase from the 2019 figures.
During a recent online event commemorating the World Population Day, Popcom said that reproductive health and family planning services were feared to be “severely impaired” in certain urban areas during the COVDID-19 pandemic. A snippet of the online event was shared by PopCom to the media on Monday.
The commission said this could result in a possible rise in incidence of unplanned pregnancies among adolescents, increasing maternal mortalities and gender-based violence.
Despite these uncertainties, Popcom said that some 8,085,000 women and men were able to obtain modern family planning services in 2020, an increase of almost 4 percent in family planning users in the country.”
In the 2019 Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health (RPRH) Law Report, PopCom reported that the modern contraceptive prevalence rate for all women was projected at 58 percent or around 7.8 million as modern family planning users.
“The drawbacks caused by the pandemic notwithstanding, POPCOM—together with UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) Philippines and our partners consisting of stakeholders and like-minded groups—continue to persist in our commitment to empower Filipino women, both young and old, in exercising their full rights and choices in the SRHR (sexual and reproductive health rights) by prioritizing their access to essential information and services,” Juan Antonio Perez, Undersecretary for Population and Development, said.
During the event, PopCom and other health leaders noted that the pandemic has “critically compromised” the protection of SRHR of women and girls globally, including the Philippines and the Asia-Pacific region.
According to PopCom, the local commemoration of the World Population Day on July 13 called for action and support from the Philippine government and other stakeholders and to commend efforts to protect the SRHR of women and girls during the pandemic.