Only a few couples join family planning seminars

CEBU, Philippines – The government had spent more than four million pesos for family planning seminars in Central Visayas in 2007 and 2008, but it was found out that the project was “not effective” because there were only 3,123 out of the 32,000 couples targeted who had attended the classes.

The Commission on Audit learned that most of the family planning-related seminars were conducted only during weekends because the husbands are working from Monday to Friday and yet a few couples attended them.

The state auditors said the program was not fully-attained because the 32,000 expected couples to be trained was not completely achieved.

The government, through the Commission on Population, wants to teach the couples about responsible parenting by limiting the number of their children.

The Popcom-7 office has been allocated with P9,685,000 for its family planning programs in 2007 and 2008, but of the amount, P5.4 million is still not spent.

With this, COA advised the agency’s officials to intensify its campaign for the use of natural family planning method, instead of the artificial family planning.

The Popcom officials explained that of the 52 local government units that were trained by them on how to implement the program in their respective places, 11 have not yet submitted their memorandum of agreement with the Popcom officials. Only 18 LGUs submitted their complete accomplishment reports, while the remaining 23 others are still to submit the same.

COA advised the Popcom officials to make a follow up with the concerned LGUs about the updates of their programs in their respective places. — Rene U. Borromeo/WAB (THE FREEMAN)