According to NSO Survey: 51 percent of married Pinays use birth control

CEBU, Philippines - The pill is still the most widely-used contraceptive by married women in the country based on the preliminary results of the 2008 National Demographic and Health Survey conducted by the National Statistics Office.

Results showed that the contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) or the proportion of married women in the Philippines, who are using any method of family planning, is 51 percent.   The use of the pill has increased in the past 5 years from 13 percent in 2003 to 16 percent in 2008.

The NSO conducted the 2008 NDHS from August 7 to September 27.

The 2008 NDHS is a nationally representative survey of almost 14,000 households and 14,000 women aged 15-49.

Alarmed by such results, Dr. Rene Josef Bullecer, the country manager of Human Life International, said that indirectly the promoters of contraceptive-used are not helping couples for birth spacing.

Bullecer said that the use of birth control will irreparably destroy the country’s demography wherein ten years from now, “we will have below replacement rate like the other 85 dead countries.”

“The cases of abortion are already very alarming as pills or IUD has failure rates. So any unwanted pregnancies will always result to abortion,” Bullecer said.

He further said that due to the “contraceptive mentality” it would result to dysfunctional or problematic families, where couples or non-couples will or can have sex anytime without responsibility.

The NDHS added that 34 percent of married women rely on a modern method, mostly the pill (16 percent) and female sterilization (9 percent).

The result added that users of modern natural family planning methods comprise less than one percent. Modern natural family planning methods include cervical mucus method or ovulation method or Billings method, standard days method (SDM) and lactational amenorrhea method.

Seventeen percent of married women use a traditional method such as withdrawal and calendar or rhythm method.

Bullecer further said that another worrisome scenario is the recent pronouncement of former US First Lady Hillary Clinton, who is now the US State Secretary, that she will dismantle all anti-abortion laws worldwide.

“Thus the Catholic Church and we in the pro-family and life crusader must triple our efforts and help prepare the Filipino electorate to support only the truly pro-life candidates in 2010 especially the presidential, vice presidential, senatorial and congressional race,” Bullecer said. — Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/NLQ (THE FREEMAN)