Did you know that . . .

majority of married women in Bicol do not use any family planning method?

More than half of married women in Bicol Region do not use any family planning method. Moreover, while modern methods were more prevalently used than traditional methods in 15 of the 16 regions (including NCR), the opposite prevailed in the Bicol Region.

Based on the 2001 Family Planning Survey (FPS), 58 percent of married women aged 15-49 years old did not practice any family planning method. The remaining 42 percent used any method, 22.9 percent of which used traditional methods while 19.1 percent used modern methods. Traditional methods include calendar/rhythm, withdrawal and others while modern methods include the pill, Intrauterine Device (IUD), injection, diaphragm/foam/jelly/ cream, condom, female/male sterilization, etc. Of the traditional methods, the calendar/rhythm method was more widely used at 15.6 percent. On the other hand, the pill was the widely used modern method at 7.2 percent.

Overall, Bicol Region remained to be one of the regions with a very low contraceptive prevalence rate (42 percent) in the country. Contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) is the proportion of the number of women using any contraceptive method over the total number of women covered by the survey. In the 2000 and 2001 FPS, Bicol Region had the second lowest CPR in the country next to the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The FPS is a nationwide survey conducted by the National Statistics Office (NSO) with results disaggregated at the regional level. Its respondents are females aged 15-49 years old. The 2001 FPS is the sixth in a series of annual family planning surveys.

The result of the 2001 FPS confirms the findings of 1999 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey (APIS) conducted by the same agency. The outcome of the 1999 APIS showed that despite the high percentage of families with access to family planning services, only less than half of couples practiced family planning.

The APIS is a nationwide survey designed to provide access and impact indicators that can be used as inputs to the development of an integrated poverty indicator and monitoring system for the assessment of the government on poverty alleviation and for use in policy-making and planning. In the APIS, family planning services includes such services andmethods like pills, IUD, injection, vaginal methods, condom, male/female sterilization, etc. It can be noted that these are the equivalent of the modern methods discussed in the 2001 FPS.
 

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