The Commission on Population will be getting a P1-billion fund from the national government for its several contraceptive programs this year to go on addressing the problem of overpopulation in the country, this was bared by Popcom regional director Leo Rama.
In an interview, Rama said that Popcom will use the said fund for the training of its health workers and also with the purchase of several contraceptives.
Earlier, the United States Agency for International Development has been providing 80 percent of the country’s contraceptive supplies — pills, condoms, intrauterine devices and injectables amounting to $US3 million yearly.
With the contraceptive phase-down already in effect amid a booming population and increasing poverty, achieving self-reliance at a faster rate is vital.
Further, Rama shared that men in Central Visayas are the number one users of condoms in the country, a nationwide survey of the National Statistics Office last year showed.
According to the NSO’s 2006 Family Planning Survey, 3.5 percent of the 2,800 Central Visayas women-respondents said their partners used condoms.
The figure is twice higher than Region 11 or Davao region with 1.8 percent.
The survey covered 45,000 women across the country.
Rama said that the data meant that men, particularly, the husbands accepted condom as one of the methods for family planning.
He added that it is a positive sign that their family planning program is being accepted by husbands in Cebu.
Despite the results, Rama said there is still a need to increase awareness in using condom especially with the increased risk of acquiring the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and other sexually-transmitted diseases with the boom in tourism in the region.
He reminds the public that there are also other family planning methods that the government is promoting such as the natural family planning method.
Based on the NSO survey, pill is the number one contraceptive in the country with 16.6 percent, followed by female sterilization, 10.4 percent; IUD, 4.1
percent; injectable contraceptives, 2.8 percent; male condom, 1.6 percent; modern natural family planning method, 0.2 percent; and vasectomy, 0.1 percent. — Jasmin R. Uy/MEEV