Closed after 14 years by Mayor Atienza

For 14 years, Women’s Health Care Foundation (WHCF) has been conducting reproductive health services and nutrition programs in Barangay 649, Zone 68, and District V, otherwise known as Baseco. About 500 women and children benefit from the foundation’s services.

The foundation’s services in Baseco are being closed now — upon orders of Manila City Mayor Lito Atienza Jr. with the agreement of the barangays council, headed by Punong Barangay Teresita Lumactud.

Baseco used to be known as the engineering island at the Port of Manila which was dredged to give way for queen Elizabeth’s Royal ship, which was to embark at the South Harbor. The island being close to a stevedoring company compound, it became known as Isla Baseco. Today Baseco is a highly congested urban poor community.

Figures for 2001 showed that the population of Baseco was 45,017. The total married women population of reproductive age was 4,227, while the population of single women of reproductive age was about 4,227. There were 11,807 children, 7,463 young adults and 19,254 adults. The adult group, dominated the population at 42.77 per cent, and the children numbered 26.23 per cent. The birth rate was high — at 7.8 per cent per year.

Today, it is estimated that there are more than 60,000 persons living in the barangays.

Unemployment rate is high, at 40 percent a year, with the labor population growing at a steady rate of 60 per cent a year. The occupations listed are laborer, carpenter, stevedore, fishermen, and land and water transport worker, retailers/vendors, and some blue-collared employees or working professionals.

The barangay used to be notorious for gang riots between migrant Muslim groups and Christian groups. In 1997, the barangay captain was able to keep peace among warring groups, but he was killed in an ambush in 2000. A Roman Catholic chapel and a mosque are found in the area.

In 1994, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) began a family planning program in Baseco called "Malacanang Tulungan," which was absorbed in 1998 by Women’s Health Care Foundation (WHCF), which had been organized in 1981 as a non-government entity working for the promotion of sexual and reproductive health rights in communities in Metro Manila and other places in the Philippines.

Three years ago, WHCF, with support from the Australian and New Zealand governments, put up a building in Baseco where it implemented its philosophy and principles, among which are that health is a right of every human being and is vital to the attainment of quality life, and that for a woman to attain quality life and fulfill her potential, she must have reproductive and sexual health, and enjoy her reproductive right to freely and responsibly manage her fertility without coercion, discrimination, and violence. Today WHCF, with support from foreign agencies, one of them Packard, maintains 11 clinics in Metro Manila — Baseco, San Juan, Pasay, Paranaque, Caloocan and Novaliches.

From 2000 to 2004, WHCF entered into a partnership with the Sangguniang Barangay of Baseco, to help create awareness of sexual and reproductive rights, and provide basic services such as medical consultation and referrals, laboratory services for pap smear and gram staining and pregnancy tests, make accessible family planning methods as pills, condoms and injectables, and refer tubal ligation cases to hospitals in Metro Manila.

In addition to WHCF doctors and nurses and technical staff, some 15 women volunteers and 10 youth volunteers in Baseco have been helping implement WHCF objectives. Similar volunteers give their services at other WHCF centers.

A recently added community service is a six-month training program which was started three months ago in the barangays with funding from the South East Asia and Pacific Global Ministries, United Church of Christ of Cleveland, Ohio. The program feeds 30 children (plus friends and cousins who tag along with them) in each of the 11 barangays. Mothers prepare the day’s menu (such as almondigas one day, then clams with eggs and rice the next day). The beneficiaries, says Helen Valenzuela, Baseco project coordinator, are "from the poorest of the poor," and classified as second and third degree malnourished.

On Nov. 13, 2004, the Sangguniang Barangay of Baseco passed Resolution No. 18 entering into another memorandum agreement which would last up to 2007, with the WCHF "for the proper promotion of sexual and reproductive health and rights in our community."

The resolution noted "the rapid increase of cases involving marital problems and violence against women," saw in a review of cases filed in the barangays that "most cases involved cases of rape, martial rape resulting to (sic) injuries to women," and  "that most of parents lacked knowledge on responsible parenthood and proper child care."

The council therefore "determined that there is an urgent need for quality, comprehensive gender and responsive RH services and information for the welfare and improvement of quality of life of our community members and to mainstream this concern in our Barangay Development Plan (BDP)."

It also resolved that Chairwoman Teresita Lumactud shall represent the Sangguniang Barangay for the signing of MOA with WHCF with focusing on the above stated aspects of Reproductive Health, no more no less."

Five months later, on May 31, 2005, the council had a change of heart, passing as it did Resolution No. 09 terminating the above MOA.

It said that after discussing various issues concerning the operation of the WHCF clinic in relation to distribution of artificial contraceptives," and considering the PRO-LIFE stance or policy of the Honorable Mayor, Jose L. Atienza Jr., which in effect discourage (sic) the use of artificial methods in family planning program of Manilenos," the council resolved to terminate the MOA effective June 1, 2005.

WHCF executive director Dr. Merlina Awit told the WHCF Board of Directors at an emergency meeting last week about the termination. She said the staff had learned about a raid to be conducted by the Manila city police on orders of Mayor Atienza on clinics making available artificial family planning methods over the TV program "Unang Hirit," and a DZBB radio show. No raid has been conducted, however. But the Sangguniang Barangay passed the resolution — after the announcements were made over the electronic media.

The WHCF Board agreed to close down operations in Baseco and padlock the building constructed through donations from the Australian and New Zealand governments to protect the staff from possible harm coming from people who feel ingratiated to the mayor for benefits given to their children (free education) and his promise to provide them housing after the recent fires in Baseco.

The WHCF staff has decided, however, to finish the last two weeks of the first three-month nutrition-feeding program to help malnourished children.

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