People, not numbers

Today (Tuesday) marks the opening of an international conference that looks back to and anticipates progress made on the most crucial issues surrounding reproductive and sexual health and rights.

The 7th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights (APCRSHR) “aims to generate new models, innovative ideas, and strategies that will address issues and challenges beyond 2015,” say organizers.

Youth issues dominate today’s sessions, with topics on education, employment and livelihood, and health among those discussed in the plenary sessions and satellite workshops.

The opening plenary will feature personages like Her Royal Highness Gusti Pembayun, a princess of the Kingdom and Special Region of

Yogyakarta, Indonesia; Kate Gilmore, assistant secretary general and deputy executive director of the UN Fund for Population; and Tewodross Melesse, director general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). Sen. Pia Cayetano, a reproductive health champion and main sponsor of the Reproductive Health bill in the Senate, will be the keynote speaker.

On Wednesday, the opening program will feature the acclaimed shadow play group El Gamma Penumbra, while Health Secretary Enrique Ona, Gilmore, UN official Nafis Sadik, and conference convenor Eden Divinagracia of the Philippine NGO Council will deliver messages.

Even as it has yet to start, the conference has already drawn controversy. So-called “prolife” groups, that are working against the implementation of the RH Law, are calling for a protest at the Philippine International Convention Center against the holding of the international gathering. More ominous is news that the same groups are planning (if they haven’t done so yet) to file a petition for a temporary restraining order against the conference.

What is so dangerous or onerous about the holding of an international gathering to talk about issues of sex, health, rights and self-determination? I guess you can tell people’s orientation and attitudes by their actions, and the anti-RH camp has just shown their antilife, antidemocratic bent.

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His mother was just 14 when she married his father, and shortly after that Tewodros Melesse was born, followed by four other boys and two girls.

Now Melesse is the director general of the  IPPF, and he takes the issues of maternal health and reproductive rights, including those of adolescents, seriously and personally. Born and reared in Ethiopia, Melesse has headed IPPF since 2011, but has had 29 years of experience in the reproductive health field.

A father of two adult daughters, Melesse speaks strongly of the need to “recognize the wellbeing of women” by providing the services they need since “healthy families and mothers are central to development.”

If he speaks like an economist, that’s because Melesse trained in the field (graduating from the Catholic University of Louvain), although he describes himself as “a passionate advocate… committed to working in strong partnership to achieve change with governments, donors and not-for-profit organizations.”

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Although an economist, Melesse says that for him priority should be given not to “numbers” but to “individuals.”

Rather than raise the alarm over reports that the Philippine population will soon number 100 million, he says, he would rather focus on the “happiness index” of a country.

But even in this, he observes, the Philippines seems to be failing its people. “There are millions of immigrants seeing a better life abroad not because they do not love their country but because their country has no jobs to offer and they must go far away to look for employment.”

A happy people, he clarifies, “should be proud of themselves, be able to feed themselves, educate themselves, work in gainful employment, and enjoy the fruits of their labor.” All of these, it is hoped, within the bosom of family and in the land they love.

As for those who oppose reproductive health and work against granting women and couples some form of control over their reproductive lives, Melesse comments: “People who live in reality are able to change their minds; people who live in fantasy will refuse to see reality.”

For instance, he says, in Ethiopia, priests of the Ethiopian Orthodox church are allowed to get married and found families. (Although those aspiring for higher office have to remain celibate.)

“This is the reason it is easy to talk to the religious leaders on the ground,” observes Melesse. “They are aware of the challenges that parents face in raising their families, and are sympathetic to reproductive rights.”

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Overall, says the IPPF official, he is optimistic about the passage through the Supreme Court of the RH Law. “It was difficult to imagine just a few years ago that Congress could adopt such a law, and that the President would sign it,” he notes, “and now Congress and the President have become allies in their commitment to family planning.”

Former congressman Edcel Lagman, who joined Melesse for lunch and to discuss RH issues in the country, aired his expectations that the Supreme Court would rule the RH Law constitutional early, by March or April. When someone observed that if true, the ruling could come Holy Week, Lagman laughingly observed: “Yes, it will be crucifixion for the opponents, and Easter for the supporters!”

The conference, Melesse observes, is a valuable chance to harness “the energies of everyone involved” and project on the international stage “the way the Philippines is moving” in the national project to provide a better life for all Filipinos—the old, the young, the born and the unborn.