Pulse Asia survey shows voters prefer bets who support family planning

This could give the presidential candidates a change of heart on the Reproductive Health bill.

While many of the nine aspirants for the presidency are either rejecting the controversial bill or are neutral in their stance, the latest survey of Pulse Asia showed that voters prefer candidates who support the modern methods of family planning, a key component of the RH bill.

According to Pulse Asia’s Pre-Election Survey (PES) on Family Planning conducted on February 21 to 25, 64 percent said they would vote for candidates who publicly promote modern methods of family planning, 6 percent said they would not vote for candidates in favor of modern family planning methods, and 30 percent were undecided.

In the same survey, 75 percent of the Filipinos think it is very important or important for a candidate to include family planning in his/her program of action, 6 percent said it is not important, and 19 percent are undecided.

Eighty-seven of the respondents also said that it is very important or important for the government to allocate budget for family planning, 4 percent said it is not important and 10 percent are undecided.

The survey, which has 1,800 respondents, has a + or - 2 percent margin of error.

It was conducted at the height of controversy on the Department of Health’s Valentine’s Day HIV and AIDS awareness campaign, when the department distributed condoms, earning the ire of the Catholic church.

The survey also showed that the majority of Filipino voters do not believe that using modern methods of family planning is a sin. When asked whether it is a sin against God to use modern methods of family planning such as pills, IUD, ligation and condom, respondents directly contradict the position of the Catholic Church. A majority, or 51 percent disagrees, 29 percent agrees, while 20 percent is undecided.

Albay Representative Edcel Lagman, a main proponent of the RH bill in Congress, said legislation is imperative to “institutionalize family planning and reproductive health as priority national policies, rather than leave these overriding concerns to the varying and vague personal preferences of the national executive leadership.”

A reproductive health law would also assure adequate funding to promote massive information campaign and ready access to reproductive health products and services to acceptors of family planning methods, whether traditional or modern.

“It would provide a nationwide and comprehensive approach to family planning which is rights-based, health-oriented and development-propelled, unlike the present fragmented and differing implementation depending on the peculiar idiosyncrasies of local executives,” he added in a statement.

Ramon San Pascual, executive director of the Philippine Legislators Committee on Population and Development Foundation, Inc. (PLCPD) stressed that, “if the next president is serious in addressing poverty in the country, then he/she must face head on the issue of family planning.”

``The next president must have a concrete program of action in helping couples, especially the poor, to plan their families and must not be cowed by the Catholic church’s opposition to modern and effective methods of family planning,” he said.