Poor Filipino couples in need of artificial contraceptives will not be getting any at health centers this year after the P1-billion allocation for family planning commodities for 2016 was stricken off the budget by the Senate, the Department of Health (DOH) said Thursday.
Health Secretary Janette Garin said the DOH had originally earmarked P1 billion out of its proposed 2016 budget of P124 billion to cover the free provision of condoms, IUDs and birth control pills, particularly for breastfeeding mothers, at health centers.
“Congress approved the budget but unfortunately we were informed that during the bicameral conference, the budget for contraceptives was removed,” Garin told the Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum Thursday.
She said the budget cut was a surprise as the three-year-old Reproductive Health (RH) Law gives beneficiaries determined by the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction universal access to medically safe, non-abortifacient and effective quality reproductive health care services, methods and supplies.
Without proper funding, the health agency will also continue to grapple with the challenge of providing for 6.7 percent of the country’s population with “unmet” family planning services, Garin said. This translates to roughly seven million Filipino women, she said.
“We don’t have any idea why the funds for contraceptives were suddenly deleted,” Garin later told reporters.
She said the budget cut will have a major impact on poor and young mothers who are highly dependent on the government’s free provision of artificial contraceptives.
“Many young parents avail of contraceptives from our health centers because they want to be able to finish school even as they take care of their children,” said Garin.
She said the supply of contraceptives procured with last year’s budget was only good up to March this year.
Donors sought
To be able to sustain its health program for the rest of the year, the DOH will now need to be aggressive in tapping international partners like the United Nations Population Fund and the US Agency for International Development, said Garin.
“Maybe we can look for donors to allow the DOH to move on with this program for this year but we really hope that both Congress and the Senate will allow it for the 2017 budget,” said Garin, who co-authored the RH law when she was still in Congress.
Garin stressed the need to provide young and poor couples with family planning services to allow them to make better choices and to give their children a better future. She noted that the Philippines has a very young population and women as young as 14 years old are getting pregnant.
Many of these women are forced to resort to abortion or abandon their children because of poverty while others strive to keep their children alive but are not able to give them an education, she added.
“We are not saying that family planning should be given to all. What we are saying is that it should be given to those who need it and to those who cannot afford it,” Garin said.
The deletion of the budget for contraceptives will also have a negative impact on key populations vulnerable to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), in which condom use was at a dismal 44 percent, she pointed out.
Earlier, the DOH declared that it was seeking to double the budget allocation for its campaign to curb the rising incidence of HIV in the country to P600 million, of which P10 million had been allotted for condoms and lubricants, which will be distributed mostly in HIV “hotspots.