Popcom aims to reach more families through programs

CEBU, Philippines - The Commission on Population assures that it will continue to aim for empowered Filipino families through its programs in the coming years.

Popcom, which recently celebrated its 47th year anniversary, vowed that the agency is committed to empower Filipino families through responsible parenting, quality health, education and population and development integration.

In 2015, Popcom said they have reached 843,381 couples, from the 800,000 target, through the Responsible Parenthood-Family Planning classes resulting in an overwhelming 105.42 percent turnout.

Popcom said that out of the couples reached, those in reproductive age increased in turnout from 751,993 in 2014 to 842,599 in 2015.

An innovative FP Logistics Hotline team was also established in the Popcom-Central Office, where family planning inventory and consumption reports are monitored and stocks from the Department of Health are checked regularly if they’ve reached the intended Rural Health Units.

To date, Popcom said that the hotline has contacted 783 out of the total 1,643 RHUs in the country, which resulted in better allocation and distribution of FP stocks as some units reported to have insufficient stocks while some have more than enough.

Aside from this, POPCOM has developed and disseminated different Information, Education and Communication materials such as posters, comics and brochures for 4Ps beneficiaries, schools, RHUs and hospitals.

POPCOM’s international partnerships have also been sustained through the South-Cooperation Initiative for Good Practices in Family Planning, Reproductive Health and Gender Mainstreaming, with meetings regularly conducted in the country and in Indonesia.

Indonesians have been studying the decentralization of FP and Reproductive Health in the country while action plans on FP and family development in municipalities of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao have already been running.

POPCOM executive director Juan Antonio Perez III hopes that the organization will be able to reach more people in the coming years and continue to inspire them to be champions of population, health and environment.  — (FREEMAN)