MANILA — The Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday said it is planning to “make more modern methods of contraception” available to “all sexually-active age groups” as the government pushes to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies in the Philippines. 

Unplanned pregnancies are among the factors why nearly 30 percent of Filipino children are stunted, Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said.

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“The problem is not the bansot (stunting) but the low cognitive ability, mahina yung utak, because the brain development happens in the first 1,000 days,” Herbosa told Palace reporters. 

“If I can just make more modern methods of contraception… making that available to adolescents will make that more protective for unplanned pregnancies,” he said. 

Cases of teen pregnancy in the Philippines rose to 150,000 in 2022 from 130,000 in 2021, data from the Commission on Population (POPCOM) showed. 

Among 15 to 19-year old girls in the Philippines, 5.4 percent have been pregnant, data showed.

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“If it’s a planned pregnancy, sigurado ako, the nutrition will be taken care of, magpapa-pre-natal yan, the diet will be monitored,” Herbosa said. 

“It is the unplanned pregnancies that give us low birth weights, small for gestational age,” he said. 

While the Philippines already has the Reproductive Health Law, the DOH still needs to make “more modern contraception” — such as implants — available in clinics where people can ask for it, the Health Secretary said. 

“Nagkakaroon pa tayo ng problem dito because some parents and some sectors want parental consent for minors to have access to these reproductive health products,” he said. 

“Wag na tayo maglokohan kasi they have sex anyway… So probably give them protection for safe sex,” he said. 

The government is also moving to allocate more funds to support the first 1,000 days of an infant instead of focusing on feeding programs when the child is already in school, Herbosa said. 

The government will pump more resources to ensure that pregnant women — especially from the marginalized sector — would get sufficient nutrients such as iron and folic acid to ensure that the fetus’ development would not be stunted, he said. 

Last year, the DOH said  it hopes to reduce stunting in the country by 8 percent, particularly through the Philippine Multi-sectoral Nutrition Project (PMNP), which would be funded by a P10-billion loan from the World Bank.

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