Almost all Cebuanos favor a law in the Philippines on reproductive health (RH) and family planning (FP). This is according to the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) Survey in all the six congressional districts of the Province of Cebu. 87 percent of Cebuanos according to the survey favor an RH and FP law in the country while 9 out of 10 or 90% of Cebuanos favor a provincial policy in RH. According to the SWS survey 93% of those who took part in the survey are Catholics. “This survey proves yet again that being Catholic has no effect when it comes to people’s or couple’s decision in matters related to their health and their families.” Mr. Benjamin de Leon, President of the Forum for Family Planning said. “It has always been used by the Catholic hierarchy as leverage to scare politicians into making the right policy decisions when it comes to reproductive health.” De Leon added.
A few months ago, a similar survey was conducted in Districts 1 and 2 of Cebu province and yielded almost the same results that 9 out 10 Cebuanos from District 1 and 2 agree that the province should have a policy on reproductive health while 88% also agree that the Philippines should have a policy on family planning and reproductive health. The Reproductive Health Bill is currently pending in Congress and NGOs and local organizations like The Forum are urging Congress to put the bill to vote. “Anti-RH Bill legislators are deliberately delaying the proceedings and we are saddened and disturbed by the lack of respect for the legislative process.” De Leon said. But while government and legislators are still entangled in the discussions, majority of Filipinos have made their decision. Two other local surveys conducted by Social Weather Stations (SWS) in the cities of Manila and Paranaque reveal an overwhelming support for a national policy on reproductive health. Despite the huge amount of money used by government to promote natural family planning (NFP) method, the 2008 National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) show that NFP was not the method preferred by Filipinos with a merely 0.1% of Filipinos using Mucus/Billings Method, 0.0% for Standard Days Method and 0.4 for Lactational Amenorrhea Method (LAM).
