From silver to gold

The 45-year-old mother of 12 children got down from the examination table after undergoing a pap smear at the Women’s Health Care Foundation (WHCF) center in Gulod, Quezon City. She told the attending doctor that had she known that the clinic existed, she and her husband could have planned spacing their children’s births. Shortly after, the doctor attended to a teenaged girl who had a uterine infection. Now waiting for their turn for a check-up were two pregnant women. And in another room were six couples waiting for the lecturer to start a family planning seminar.

Similar scenes are taking place in the eight regular WHCF clinics and on certain days at outreach clinics in 16 partner barangays in Metro Manila. Since the non-governmental organization was founded in 1980, hundreds of thousands of women and their partners, adolescents and children have been given access to quality health services and information in the area of reproductive health.

Dr. Florence M. Tadiar, WHCF president said the clinics were started "to establish and effectively operate quality and affordable clinical and laboratory facilities that respond to the reproductive health needs of women – particularly the disadvantaged – their partners as well as their children."

The foundation, she said, believes that health "is a right of every human being and is vital to the attainment of quality life. For a woman to attain quality life and fulfill her potential, she must have reproductive and sexual health, and enjoy her reproductive rights to freely and responsibly manage her fertility without coercion, discrimination, and violence." On this basis, the clinics make available different methods of family planning, but not abortion.

Services offered by the clinics are family planning, obstetrical, gynecological, and pediatric examinations and treatment, pre-natal and post-partum care, laboratory examinations, and counseling of women victims-survivors of Violence Against Women (VAW) and Overseas Filipino Workers. Attending to patients are competent and committed medical doctors, nurses, midwives, medical technologists and attendants.

WHCF puts premium on disseminating information and holding education and training activities on gender-responsive reproductive health, sexuality and sexual reproductive rights, adolescent sexuality and reproductive health, fertility management, uterine infections, and HIV/AIDS. Service providers from various parts of the country are given training on PMAC (Prevention and Management of Abortion and its Complications), one of the Department of Health Reproductive Health Program Elements.

The organization believes that the youth should be told the realities of HIV/AIDS and other sex-related infections and their prevention. It has gone to university campuses, starting with the University of the Philippines, to train students to spread the bad news about those diseases. This initiative was an offshoot of the Young Adult Fertility Survey conducted by the UP Population Institute, which had shown that only a few young people consult health providers for their sexuality or reproductive health problems.

In addition, young people are taught team building, public speaking, basic journalism, and newsletter production to prepare them for communication careers.

A thorn in the organization’s vision to promote efficient, safe, affordable and constitutionally-approved methods of family planning is the closure of its clinic in Baseco in Tondo, Manila, one of the city’s congested and deprived barangays. The Barangay Council terminated its partnership agreement with WHCF because of pressure from the city mayor for the clinic to provide only the Catholic Church’s natural family planning method. The closure resulted in the launching of a movement among various NGOs, which they named "Bantay RH (RH Watch), to mount a campaign to prevent local government officials from curtailing the reproductive health rights of their constituencies.

Last year WHCF celebrated its 24th anniversary with discussions in the barangays on the care of pregnant women, entitled, "Sigurado at Maluwalhating Pagiging Nanay: Responsibilidad Natin Lahat." (Safe and Happy Motherhood: Responsibility of Us All).

This year WHCF is celebrating its 25th year around the theme, "Turning Silver to Gold for Women’s Health." Since September, organizers have been holding forums, orientation seminars and workshops, clinic openings and medical missions. The culminating activity will be tomorrow, December 7; a program to be held at the Bahay Kalinaw at the UP campus in Diliman. Silver Stars for Women’s Health will be given to individuals or organizations who have contributed significantly to the promotion and protection of women’s health but have not yet been nationally recognized for their efforts and accomplishments. Loyalty Awards will also be given to deserving staff.

To be given Silver Stars are Luz Muego and Dr. Virgilio Oblepias (for family planning), Drs. Angela Sison-Aguilar and Augusto Manalo (maternal and child health), Drs. Concepcion Itao and Virgilio Novera (infertility), Dr. Eilen Bautista and UP Population Institute (prevention and management of abortion), Drs. Genara Limson and Corazon Ngelangel (reproductive tract infections), Margarita Holmes and Dr. Michael Tan (gender and sexuality), Dr. Corazon Abriam and Foundation for Adolescent Development (adolescent reproductive health), Dr. Regina Dela Paz-Ingente and Women’s Crisis Center (violence against women), Penny del Cruz, Ces Drilon, Ma. Fe Nicodemus and Alma dela Rosa (media), and Ernesto A. Tanigue, chair of Barangay Gulod, Novaliches, Quezon City (best performing barangay).

Several national awards have been given WHCF officers for the organization’s commitment to the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action. These are Prof. Alfredo Tadiar, former chair; Dr. Florence Tadiar, president, and Alexandra Marcelo and this columnist, board members.

Board members Dr. Marta Reyes and Dr. Florence Tadiar are cited in the book A Century of Women in the Health Sciences, 1900-2000 published by the University of the Philippines. The book features 129 Filipino trailblazers in the various fields of the health sciences.

WHCF was also presented the Filipino Feminist Centennial Award as a "pioneering feminist organization" and for its program which is "rights-based, non-discriminatory and (has a) non-judgmental approach that assures privacy and confidentiality" by the NGO-GO National Network for the Feminist Centennial

Two officers who have helped WHCF fulfill its mission are Dean Froilan Bacungan, chair, and Dr. Fernando S. Sanchez Jr., treasurer.

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THE WOMAN’S MARCH Against Poverty and Globalization will be held in Manila December 8, on the eve of the 6th World Trade Organization Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong. According to Mercy Fabros, national coordinator of the March, also called Panimulang Yanig! Hundreds of women will be mobilized to "highlight the atrocious impact of global economic inequalities on women’s lives." On December 8, women will hold a strike, by getting out of the bed, out of the kitchen fields, factory and places of work and march from the Delta Quezon City Circle and meet up at Plaza Miranda in Quiapo. Mercy said at a small press con yesterday that it will not be a violent demonstration, but will be colorful and fun even as the marchers denounce the forces that have contributed to further their marginalization.

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