According to the Department of Health, over 10 million Filipino women nationwide still have no access to family planning and face the risk of unwanted pregnancies, as the country is still 17 percent short of its FP2030 commitment to attain 75 percent demand satisfied with family planning methods by the year 2030.
“Our target for family planning demand satisfied with modern family planning is 75 percent and we are at 58 percent,” Dr. Ron Allan Quimado of the DOH Child, Adolescent, and Maternal Health Division reported during the 2024 National Conference on Family Planning.
In 2023, he said there were 12.9 million or 44 percent of women who had a need for family planning. Of the number, the health official reported 8.7 million or 67 percent of women aged 15 to 19 years were using modern family planning methods.
He said oral pills remain the top preference with 25 percent of total current users, followed by injectables at 20.66 percent and female sterilization accounting for 9.48 percent. Implants posted the highest increase, growing by 24.11 percent to become the fourth most common modern family planning method.
By choosing modern family planning methods, Quimado said around 3 million unintended pregnancies, 800,000 unsafe abortions, and 970 maternal deaths were averted in 2023.
“Even as we celebrate the success, we know that there is more that needs to be done,” he said as he stressed the importance of identifying and providing family planning access to 10.177 million women.
Meanwhile, Health Secretary Ted Herbosa admitted that the country has a “big problem” with the increasing number of pregnancies among girls younger than 15 years. “We have a big problem with teenage pregnancy. That is the number one contributor to maternal mortality because they don’t do prenatal checkups,” he explained.
The importance of access cannot be stressed when it comes to programs like reproductive health, which is aimed at protecting not only mothers, but also looks after the welfare of families, teenagers, and even the unborn. By giving options and putting hands in the power of the women, unwanted pregnancies can be prevented, those that are wanted less stressful, and families made less vulnerable to circumstances that could derail plans and upend futures.*
