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What do you think are the reasons of the high unmet need of FP in the Philippines?
For me, one of the contributing factors that affect the high unmet need of Family Planning in the Philippines is the poor reach of information about FP especially to geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas since in those areas health care facilities and healthcare professionals are still insufficient in numbers related to their estimated population. Another underlying factor that I can see also is that the majority of Filipino families’ thinking is still primitive, close-minded, and conservative making them not receptive to information that will greatly benefit them. In line with my previous discussion about reproductive health law, the Roman Catholic Church is one of the groups that strongly oppose for the bill to be passed because according to the teachings of the Bible the law violates life, can destroy the family, and promotes promiscuity of the youth. The Philippines known to be dominated by Christians especially Roman Catholics, Filipinos' decision of practicing Family Planning is being hindered by the religion’s teaching.
The study by Casterline et. al. (1997) sees five major factors in the high unmet need of Family Planning in the Philippines and they are the ff: a) Unmet need is an artifact of survey measurement which sub focused on how fertility preferences are inaccurately measured as well as contraceptive practice is inaccurately measured, b) Fertility preferences are weakly held by women with unmet need c) Women with unmet need perceive themselves as being at low risk of conceiving, Women with unmet need lack the necessary knowledge of contraception and d) High "costs" of practicing contraception block the implementation of preferences.
I also agree with the study conducted by Latorre (2019) that the paucity or insufficiency of studies and research about this certain issue is a challenge to the Reproductive Law, especially to Family Planning thus call the need to conduct research that will mainly focus on family planning and sexual behavior of Filipino partners and adolescents.
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What are ways you can suggest to increase the practice of FP in the country? Give at least 1-2 suggestions.
Continue strengthening health education to Reproductive Health in School and Counseling to every Health Care Center.
Provision of health education to adolescents will make them aware at a young age about key aspects of reproductive health and will prepare them in the future to make the right decisions. The provision also of consistent counseling will empower the couple and will help them also to make the right decisions.
Make reproductive health and family planning services cost-efficient, inclusive and reachable especially to geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas.
We need to remove barriers to these health services in all aspects so that practice of Family Planning will be continuous since it will be accessible to all. Nagai et.al. (2019) pointed out that “improving delivery of effective contraceptive methods requires addressing wider legal, policy, social, cultural, and structural barriers which prevent individuals from accessing and using contraception and influence the quality of counseling provided”.
References:
Casterline, J. B., Perez, A. E., & Biddlecom, A. E. (1997). Factors underlying unmet need for family planning in the Philippines. Studies in Family Planning, 28(3), 173–191. https://doi.org/10.2307/2137886.
Latorre, A.A.E. (2019). Factors associated with unmet need for family planning among young women in the Philippines. PJHRD, 23 (2). ISSN: 2704-3517. https://pjhrd.upm.edu.ph/index.php/main/article/view/276
Nagai, M., Bellizzi, S., Murray, J., Kitong, J., Cabral, E., & Sobel, H. (2019). Opportunities lost: Barriers to increasing the use of effective contraception in the Philippines. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0218187.