SHE MAY HAVE ANTAGONIZED THE ROMAN Catholic Church for distributing condoms during Valentine?s Day but Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral?s effort to make condoms available to Filipinos is supported by militant workers.

However, we urge the DOH to distribute artificial contraceptives not as a PR gimmick but as a permanent program and on a ?large-scale? to enable men and women, especially the poor, to have access to reproductive health services.

The DOH should provide Filipinos, especially the poor, with condoms and other artificial contraceptives on a regular basis through the barangay health centers. The distribution should go hand in hand with educational discussions on the use of contraceptives in relation to the spread of HIV-AIDS, spacing of children, unwanted pregnancies, teenage pregnancies, among others.

The government, through the health department, should address the unmet need for effective contraception among women, especially poor women. Reproductive health is a primary concern of individual women yet a woman?s choice has always been challenged by institutions based on moral standards.

Contrary to the Church?s pronouncements that this is a moral issue, the distribution of condom to address the spread of HIV-AIDS is rather a reproductive health concern that should be practically addressed through widespread education and provision of appropriate social services.

According to ?The Incidence of Induced Abortion in the Philippines: Current Level and Recent Trends? by Fatima Juarez, Josefina Cabigon, Susheeia Singh and Rubina Hussain (Guttmacher Institute, New York, 2005), ?one of every two married women did not want a child soon or wanted no more children, but were not using a contraceptive method.?

This only means that women and men actually want to reduce the number of children but do not have the means to do so. In poorer communities, one condom would amount to a pack of noodles. To countless half-starved families, food would definitely come first over safe sex.

We support the passage of the reproductive health bill which promotes active government role in providing reproductive health care and education among women and men, including the use of artificial contraceptives.

?JUDY ANN MIRANDA,

secretary general,

Partido ng Manggagawa

5 Maimpok St., Barangay Sikatuna,

Quezon City