POPCOM to give family planning services to small firms

The Commission on Population (POPCOM) on Wednesday said that it will be giving family planning commodities and services to small companies in the provinces with less than 200 employees. (Photo by Brian Evans/Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0)

MANILA–The Commission on Population (POPCOM) on Wednesday said that it will be giving family planning commodities and services to small companies in the provinces with less than 200 employees.

“We can work with the provincial government and the regional Department of Health (DOH) offices to provide commodities if they need it and also technical support,” Dr. Juan Antonio A. Perez III, POPCOM executive director, said in an interview on Wednesday at the family planning in the workplace forum in Makati City.

He said they will also tap local government units (LGUs), through the rural health units, since the small companies usually do not have doctors, nurses and health workers who can provide their employees with the necessary information on the available family planning commodities and services.

He said that providing such access is an essential tool because there is a need to bring down the unmet need for family planning services among the young population, including those working in the formal and informal sectors.

POPCOM will further discuss all the necessary guidelines with the regional implementation team for the implementation of the program, which aims to support the provision of access Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health services by some big companies employing more than 200 workers.

The program, dubbed as Business Action for Family Planning Access, encourages private sector engagement in family planning either in the workplace, community or as a core business.

It was made possible through a partnership between the Employers Confederation of the Philippines, the Department of Labor and Employment, POPCOM and the United Nations Population Fund for Population Activities (UNPFA) in 2014.

For his part, UNFPA Country Representative Klaus Beck called on companies and private businesses to invest in providing family planning services to their workers.

“Let me urge the private sector companies gathered here… to join us in this very timely and meaningful initiative of giving women and girls, as well as men and boys, the opportunity to make their lives better through family planning and reproductive health,” Beck said.

Beck also called on local firms with sufficient workplace family planning programs to help other companies that lack reproductive health services.

“I also encourage those companies already benefitting from this program to pay it forward by mentoring other companies so that the family planning in the workplace movement can propel forward with even more urgency, with more momentum, and with more speed,” Beck added.

Under the program, workers are given lectures to make them aware about family planning and reproductive health; and access to some essential family planning commodities.

The goal to give access to workers on awareness about family planning and informed choices is to let them understand that planning the number of children will make them more productive.

It also aims reduce the workers’ absences from their jobs, which is in turn beneficial also to the company that invests in it.

At present, the target priorities of POPCOM for improving access to family planning services are the poorest quintiles or the 40 percent poorest population.