ILOILO CITY, Mar 8 (PIA). Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago recently lauded public officials who have enacted reproductive health ordinances in their respective areas.
She particularly cited public officials in the Visayas area such as the municipalities of Talibon, Ubay, and Carmen of Bohol province and the municipalities of Llorente and Maydolong of Eastern Samar which have enacted their own reproductive health ordinances.
“The public officials in these Visayan areas should be emulated in their efforts to uphold access to reproductive health information and health care services; and to make a clear stand on the right of individuals and couples to informed choices”, said Santiago.
The call was made by Santiago during her speech at a forum held at the University of the Philippines in the Visayas in line with the Women’s Month celebration attended by students, health workers, women advocates and other stakeholders on March 4.
Santiago said middle class and upper class women can afford to pay for their own contraceptives and other reproductive health care but not in the case of poor women in the communities, rural areas and in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao.
Santiago is the only senator to have filed the Reproductive Health Act or Senate Bill No. 2378 in the Senate.
She said it has been almost a decade since the first RH bill was filed in Congress in December 2001 and the delay in the passage of the bill is detrimental to the health and lives of Filipinos especially women and children.
According to Santiago, based on the 2010 UNFPA State of the World report on the Philippines, at least 230 Filipino women die for every 100,000 live births. Daily, there are 11 women dying, due to conditions related to pregnancy and childbirth.
“Not a single death should happen, due to pregnancy and childbirth. These preventable deaths could have been avoided, if more Filipino women had access to reproductive health information and health care”, said Santiago.
She urged participants of the forum that “it is time to stand up for the right to reproductive health care and the right to informed choice”. (JCM/LAF/PIA-Iloilo) –Lilibeth A. French
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