ADVOCATES OF reproductive health care had been putting up a vigorous fight in Congress to pass a reproductive-health code to help poor provinces like Ifugao. But HB 4110 (Reproductive Health Care Act of 2002) at the previous House did not even muster a second reading; in the current House, HB 3773 (The Responsible Parenthood and Population Management Act of 2005) made it a bit farther, but in the end it drowned in the legislative quagmire.

	TATAY KONG NANAY. An enlightened man of the mountains. [photo by Ricardo Reyes]

It’s no help that the administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo toes the line of the Roman Catholic Church. The government’s family-planning budget has been severely slashed, and the administration is giving emphasis only to the church-approved natural family planning, which is based on the premise that the woman’s menstruation cycle is regular and that partners are cooperative enough not to have sex on certain days.

Not surprisingly, some local governments are taking matters into their own hands. When HB 4110's main sponsor, then Aurora Rep. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo, ran for governor of her province and won, one of her first moves was to sign Provincial Ordinance No. 125, providing for the Aurora Reproductive Health Care Code of 2005.

Castillo deputized the barangay health workers to do door-to-door family-planning consultations and surveys. The result is a code that assures Aurora youths that they will be provided reproductive health and sexuality education. Everyone else -- like unwed mothers, government officials, overseas Filipino workers, and even those couples separated by jail bars — is required to undergo responsible parenthood counseling.

Aurora’s code also earmarked a minimum amount of P500,000 for the program’s implementation, even as it had towns and barangays augment the province’s reproductive-health program financially.

Ifugao must have heard the call from the other side of the mountain. Then Ifugao Vice Governor Glenn Prudenciano, who had been attending health symposia all over the country, started the groundwork for a similar bill. When Governor Benjamin Cappleman succumbed to cancer last October, Prudenciano became the province’s chief executive, but he kept on working on the reproductive-health bill.

In consultation with UNFPA, Prudenciano devised a scheme so that the cash-strapped Ifugao provincial government would not have to shell out the bulk of the money needed for its Reproductive Health Code. So now Section 22 of the Code states that "a minimum amount which is equivalent to ten percent of the benefit payment from the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation of the Ifugao Provincial Hospital and District Hospitals in the province shall be automatically appropriated for this purpose."

"There was no opposition from the board because the IRA (internal revenue allotment) would not be touched," says Dimayuga. He also observes, "The beauty of this code is that the financing and the roles of every organization had been clearly defined so that the sustainability of the program is set.”

Similar to Aurora’s version, the Ifugao Code looks to the barangay health workers as the backbone of its program. One of the barangay health workers’ tasks is to coordinate with the Sangguniang Kabataan of each village to establish a peer-counseling network particularly for out-of-school youths.

At the same time, public and private schools from Grade 5 up would have a common curriculum to inform them about reproductive and sexual health and family planning, with emphasis on modern contraceptive methods, abstinence before marriage and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. Religious organizations, meanwhile, are expected to provide education and counseling on sexuality and network with other members of the civil society.

DR. EDEN Divinagracia, executive director of the nongovernmental organization Council for Population, Health and Welfare, which is one of those calling for local RH advocacy, says Ifugao Province’s new Code is a victory for the people. She has predicted that other provinces would follow suit with their own reproductive-health code even if the national government is "trying to act blind."

True enough, Governor Maximo Dalog of neighboring Mountain Province said in his state of the province address last January 16 that his top priority this year would be the passage of his province’s very own reproductive-health code.

Yet it remains to be seen how Tinoc will take to the new Code. Culture can be a hindrance to quality reproductive health care, even when there are laws that mandate the latter. For instance, Comilang notes of the sexual-abuse cases in Ifugao: "The traditional way of justice…prevails over the aggrieved party's desire to got to court."

Indeed, even with the interference of UNFPA in the area, Tinoc still had 13 cases of verbal and physical abuse, and rape and incest cases, documented by the municipal social services office in 2004 and 2005.

The practice of kalon where the older men court a girl in behalf of a boy, along with kaihing or a'apuh or arranged marriages, are still prevalent in remote Ifugao towns. Sexually transmitted diseases and abortion remain taboo conversation topics. Yet the Ifugao Provincial Health Office recorded 104 cases of abortion in 2004 and 112 in 2005.

Even the use of family planning is shadowed by cultural bias. There is the traditional notion that children are the source of wealth, which means the more, the better. It is also believed that Maknongan (supreme deity of the Ifugao) controls the number of children a family can have.

Then again, the theft of the strawberry condoms in Tinoc could be an indication that some townfolk now think Maknongan has better things to do than count babies.