Population agency to continue mandate despite name change

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY -- The Commission on Population (Popcom) will continue to fulfill its reproductive health mandate even if it has already been reconstituted and placed under a different agency, an official said Thursday.

President Rodrigo Duterte signed Executive Order 71 last December 13, renaming Popcom as Commission on Population and Development (CPD), placing it under the  National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) from the Department of Health (DOH).

Jeremias Gupit, CPD-10 (Northern Mindanao) director, said that despite its name change and transfer to a new supervising agency, the population body will still handle the government's reproductive health programs, population-related policies, especially on family planning, in coordination with the DOH.

“Our coordinative linkages with DOH (are) not affected,” Gupit said in an interview with the Philippine News Agency (PNA).

“We are still on the demand-generation side, meaning, our agency is in charge of information and motivation on the use of family planning, while DOH will provide the services,” he added.

In reorganizing the population body, Duterte said “there is a need to enhance its (CPD) coordination with NEDA” to strengthen the development and implementation of the agency’s population-related plans, policies, programs, and projects in pursuit of socioeconomic development programs of the government.

Mae Ester Guiamadel, NEDA-10 assistant regional director, said the population commission “would be operating under the environment where planning is the key in terms of the implementation of its mandate.”

Guiamadel reiterated that CPD’s relationship with the DOH “would still continue but already under the NEDA's supervision.”

With NEDA’s guidance, CPD will be refocusing its direction on the management of population development, she said.

“So it’s not just reproductive health alone -- it’s more on the demographic aspect of planning,” she said.

In a statement, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said NEDA will “step up the implementation of the (Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law), which will benefit all Filipino families.”

CPD is mandated to formulate and adopt coherent, integrated, and comprehensive long-term plans, programs, and recommendations on population and family planning as it relates to economic and social development.

Pernia said NEDA will “make sure that the country’s population is well-managed and programs related to it are in sync with our overall development plans.”

According to the World Bank, the Philippine population as of 2017 was 104,918,090.

By the end of this year, the number of Filipinos is expected to reach 107,190,081, according to a recent estimate of the population commission.

The Philippine Statistics Authority has projected that by 2045, the country’s population will balloon to about 142 million.

To address this, NEDA said it has identified the integration of population and development as one of the key strategies to accelerate the nation’s economic growth and improve the quality of Filipinos’ lives.

NEDA crafted the country’s development blueprint, known as the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022.

Pernia assured that the agency will see to it that the population is “well-managed and programs related to it are in sync with our overall development plans.” (PNA)