Filipino men urged to take ‘more active role’ in family planning, RPRH

The Commission on Population and Development (POPCOM) on Wednesday urged Filipino men to take a “more active role” in family planning to maintain the country's lower fertility rate.

The appeal was made in line with International Men’s Day on November 19, with the commission citing numbers in modern contraceptive usage among the country’s male populace.

PopCom Officer in Charge-Executive Director Lolito Tacardon said that greater men’s involvement in family planning will help sustain the relatively low fertility level among women in the country—which has decreased from an average of three babies per woman (2.7) aged 15 to 49 years old in 2017 to less than two for every mother this year (1.9)— and prevent unplanned and risky pregnancies that may result in birth-related deaths.

“From a male standpoint, resorting to family planning does not take away anything biologically. Absolutely none of the methods—neither condoms nor NSV (non-scalpel vasectomy)—affect virility, libido and sexual drive,” said Tacardon.

“NSV, for instance, is a simple outpatient operation that involves the cutting and sealing of a small tube—the vas deferens—which will impede the flow of semen. It is, not in any way, a form of castration,” he added.

Contraceptives

According to the Department of Health’s 2020 Field Health Services Information System (FHSIS), only about 400,000 Filipino men currently use condoms, which is still up from 270,000 in 2016, according to POPCOM.

The commission noted that male sterilization through NSV remains largely unpopular “as there were only about 15,000 who underwent the procedure in 2020, or less than 1% of all family planning users at 8.1 million.”

“This was even lower than in 2016 at about 16,000, out of a universe of 6.1 million users then,” the agency added.

Citing the latest National Demographic and Health Survey, POPCOM said that out of about 40% of modern contraceptive users, there was “just a slight uptake of condoms” from 2017’s 1.7% to 2022’s 2%.

For NSVs, the figure remained at 0.1% in the last five years.

Former POPCOM chief Dr. Juan Antonio Perez III also echoed a DOH report that only about 400 NSVs were performed in 2021.

Tacardon said that Filipino men should share the responsibility and involvement in “maternal care, children's health, and nutrition.”

If men openly embrace contraceptive responsibility, Tacardon said, it would help ease “the burden of family planning and RPRH” on women.

“The pandemic has taught us that having the number, timing and spacing of children that we can adequately support is a way of making our families more resilient to any emergency situations; hence, the importance of family planning,” he said.

“It, however, entails a shared decision between couples or partners, as we encourage more involvement from fathers and husbands,” he added. — BM, GMA Integrated News