Bukidnon woman, 81, still promotes natural family planning

MANILA, Philippines - Despite a stroke last April and debilitating arthritis, 81-year-old Feling Porsuelo is not about to give up what she believes is her mission in life – promoting natural family planning (NFP).

Porsuelo has been espousing this advocacy for almost five decades but she still feels she has not done enough to help couples make the right choices for their families.

“I am not thinking about stopping. I don’t want to be idle while there is still a lot to be done to help couples out there,” she told The STAR on Saturday.

Since her first exposure to NFP in 1966, Porsuelo has gone a long way and is now one of the country’s pioneers in NFP promotion and education.

With her late husband Eli who died in 2006, she developed and simplified a set of rules on NFP now known as the “Porsuelo experience.”

The method was even recognized by the late Pope John Paul II, and the Porsuelo couple was appointed by the Vatican to the Pontifical Council of the Family to represent the Philippines.

Porsuelo recalled being personally commended by John Paul II at the Vatican in an event attended by only 21 selected couples from all over the world.

“That’s one of my most unforgettable experiences – meeting and talking with the pope,” she said.

The pope told her, “You know Feling, you are the extended heart of the Holy Father. With what you did, you are preparing for the next generation.”

How it all began

Porsuelo’s involvement in NFP promotion started in 1966 when she was working as an attendant in a hospital at Camp Philips in Del Monte, Bukidnon.

She said a group of mothers approached a nun, Helen Pauls, for information on family planning.

“Being a nun, she could not tell them about family planning. But a priest, a certain Fr. Madrigal, knew about family planning so a seminar was organized primarily among professionals then,” Porsuelo said.

Since nuns were not allowed to stay out late alone during that time, Pauls asked if Porsuelo could accompany her to the seminars, prompting her exposure to the NFP.

She had three children at the time and she and her husband were practicing basal and body temperature and the mucus methods.

“I was not really interested at the start but it eventually caught my attention,” she said.

She admitted not understanding some aspects of the NFP, particularly the “charting,” so she and her husband decided to develop the methods.

The church also saw her potential as speaker so she was taken in as an educator for family planning.

Since then, Porsuelo has lost count of how many seminars and other events she had attended to promote NFP.

According to Rene Evidente, NFP coordinator for the Diocese of Parañaque, the Porsuelo method was a magnet to couples at the grassroots level.

“They developed the existing methods and came up with a simplified version which is easier for grassroots couples to practice,” he said.