THE court case involving P400 million worth of contraceptive implants, which will expire in 2019, is the latest addition to the list of influences seen delaying the country’s entry into the so-called demographic sweet spot.
Yes, contrary to what the government and other experts have been claiming, the Philippines is actually decades away from enjoying the demographic dividend.
A temporary restraining order (TRO), issued by the Supreme Court (SC) on Implanon in June 2015, has prevented the government from administering the implants to poor women nationwide.
While the SC has yet to decide on the fate of Implanon, the implants are currently stored in government warehouses and could stay there until its expiration date in 2019.
“Conservative groups backed by the Catholic Church have charged that the implants are abortifacient.
Some of the implants have already expired. It’s a terrible situation,” University of the Philippines economist Ernesto M. Pernia told the BusinessMirror.
Population Commission Executive Director Juan Antonio Perez III said, however, the implants are still in good condition and will be ready for immediate distribution once the TRO is lifted.
Perez said the Department of Health (DOH) was able to distribute the implants to various regions nationwide between April and May last year. But the DOH was forced to suspend its distribution to women in other parts of the country because of the TRO.
The DOH bought a total of 600,000 implants, according to previous reports. Implanon is included in the list of temporary contraceptives being distributed by the national government in accordance with the provisions of the reproductive health (RH) law.
“The implants are still viable and these would be kept in good condition. That can be made available immediately if the TRO is lifted, so it would be good if the Supreme Court can decide on this issue favorably,” Perez said.
He said this and the confirmation of Health Secretary Janette Garin that the RH budget for 2016 was scrapped made the population conundrum a difficult one to resolve.
The DOH and even civil-society groups lamented the removal of the P1-billion budget to provide free condoms, IUDs and birth-control pills nationwide.
While the RH program still has some stock of contraceptives left over from the 2015 allocation, these are only enough to cover the requirements up to the second quarter of this year. There could be a shortage toward the second half of the 2016, according to Perez.
“[The supply] might get deteriorate toward the second half of the year. The demand is high for pills, for injectables,” Perez said.
“We hope that the cut in the budget will be mitigated somehow. Hopefully this year, otherwise our momentum will be lost or [the program] might be compromised,” he added.
The lack of budget for RH and the TRO could cause the nationwide contraception use rate to drop to 23 percent from the current 46 percent, an increase in fertility rate to above 3 percent, and more maternal deaths.
Currently, Perez said the maternal death rate is at 200 deaths per 100,000 live births. An additional 50,000 births this year could mean 100 more women dying due to childbirth.
Perez said these are the consequences of the additional costs that would have to be shouldered by poor women in far-flung areas of the country. Women living in far-flung areas have little or no access to contraceptives and are forced to dig into their own pockets if they want to plan their family through artificial means.
He said a month’s supply of pills costs anywhere from P40 to P400, while injectables cost P100 to several hundred pesos. Condoms are the cheapest, at less than P20 each.
These items become more expensive in the provinces as traders have to pass on logistics cost to consumers. End-users also incur more expenses as they would have to travel to cities to buy contraceptives.
“If contraceptives are no longer available at the barangay level, buyers would have to go to town to buy what they need at higher prices. In the end, the cost to households may be higher than the real value of the contraceptives,” Perez said.
The problem with the increase in fertility is that it serves as a major hurdle to allowing the Philippines to reap the so-called demographic dividend. Contrary to the belief of some groups and individuals, the Philippines is far from being in a demographic sweet spot.
Even Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan said it will take the Philippines no less than 30 years to start reaping the demographic dividend.
Balisacan said this is mainly due to the high fertility rate in the Philippines. Fertility rate, he explained, is the number of children a woman can give birth to in her lifetime.
Other countries, including Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and Taiwan, were able to increase investments in health and education because of the significant decline in their total fertility rate (TFR). These countries attribute the cut in fertility rate to aggressive family planning programs.
Pernia said the decline in TFR will also allow households to increase their spending for health and education. Also, the government will no longer need huge budgets for social spending and could use these funds instead to construct more public infrastructure.
More investments in infrastructure would bring the Philippines closer to enjoying the demographic dividend—the accelerated economic growth that may result from a rapid decline in a country’s fertility and the subsequent change in the population age structure.
“The pattern of fertility rate now [in the Philippines], it’s declining but at a very slow rate of decline compared to what happened to our neighbors. That window of opportunity [demographic dividend] will not happen soon,” Balisacan said.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes