President Raymund Balicha shared vital information and statistics why the Philippines has now the highest rate of teenage pregnancy among the  ASEAN countries.

The teenage mother speaker relayed her ordeal being a teenage mother to the students. The students were shocked to hear her story. During the open forum many students participated in asking questions to her. The students were curious on this sensitive topic.

Some questions asked by students were:

1. Did you realize that you were already engaging in an actual sexual act with your boyfriend?
2. Did you know the consequence of your sexual contact that may get you pregnant?
3. What is the reason why you did not listen to your mother’s advice?
4. How painful was it when you were giving birth for the first time?
5. Have you been pessimistic about the  future for yourself and your child?
6. How did you know that you are pregnant

Dr. Liza Fe Capupus (Tagaytay City Health Officer) was supportive of this Teenage Pregnancy Forum.  She relayed to the students that the rate of teenage pregnancy is increasing in the City of Tagaytay. She said that she owns a lying-in maternal clinic in Alfonso and noticed that there are many teenage mothers giving birth in her clinic. She told the students that teen pregnancy can be very risky as it could lead to maternal death due to pre-clampsia or the sudden rise in blood pressure. On top of that the young body of a teenage mother is not yet fully developed to bear her own child. At the end of the forum, she gathered the participated students to make a study on the effect of the said forum.

Rosalinda Eridao of DSWD-Tagaytay shared her insight on teenage pregnancy. She said a teenage mother and her child is likely to be physically abused by her partner in later life. Likewise children of teen mothers are more likely neglected and peform poorly in school. These incidents are based on her experience with DSWD.

Our club member Betty Vicedo also shared her motherly advice to the students. She said her adopted daughter was a victim of teenage pregnancy when she was studying at the Tagaytay National High School. She said it was not easy raising her grandchild when the father was not around to support her adopted daughter.

In the latter part of the forum four short video documentaries on teenage pregnancy was shown on screen, which seem to have visually impacted them effectively.

At the end of the forum, a male teenage student openly said that he now has a clearer understanding about the suffering a teenage mother will go through. He now has more respect for a woman and he will not become a teenage father after what he had learned from the forum.

RIMM gave the check donation of P10,000 through Ms. Madz (in orange T-shirt) to aid post-surgery medication cost of FriendlyCare. She issued an Official Receipt of the said donation.

Ms. Madz said FriendlyCare aims to provide its ligation services in the entire Province of Cavite. Ms. Madz told us that FriendlyCare gives financial incentives to the Barangay health worker for every successful ligation referred.

Dr. Liza Capupus (in blue-white blouse) who is a City Health Officer of Tagaytay, strongly supports Family Planning.

Dr. Capupus mentioned the following reasons why the uneducated sector in the Philippines remain in utter poverty and continuing to rise in alarming rate:

• they do not believe or refuse in the usage of any method of contraception
• they believe having more children will help in earning money to put food
  on the table each day; they are lucky if they can have one meal in a day.
• strong influence of the Catholic Church

She said USAID has observed that usage of pills & condoms being provided for free in health centers were mainly used by middle income sector and not by the poorest sector who needs it most which was USAID’s main target. That is part of the reason why USAID has diminished its assistance to the Department of Health. There are now lesser supplies of contraception available for free at health centers.

She also said the Department of Health has trained selected professional health workers to be resource speakers on a subject called “Adolescent Health” wherein teenage pregnancy is discussed in the said subject. There are modules in the program that the trained resource speakers follow as guidelines during the seminar. She assigns her resource speakers on voluntary basis to conduct it at local high schools in Tagaytay. The City Health Head Nurse of Tagaytay will conduct the Adolescent Health seminar at Tagaytay National High School.

She suggested that we approach Dr. Manzo to invite a trained resource speaker on Adolescent Health from her department to participate in our Teenage Pregnancy Forum at Taywanak National High School in Alfonso on Sept, 18.

JRIMM (Rotary International Multinational Manila) Rotarians collaborated with DSWD (Department of Social Welfare Development) and AWH (Academy of World Healing Foundation) in providing commodities such as rice, other food items, firewood and clothing to 82 indigent families in barangay (village) Kaysuyo, Alfonso, Cavite. Family planning was high on the minds of almost everyone attending and was stressed by Rotarians in subsequent talks.

JContraceptives are available at health centers and contraceptive methods are being taught by midwives. However, there is a community-wide shortage
of them.  Among the women there was an overall consensus for the need for more effective  family planning as it can still provide a better future for their children. Limited resources can somehow still be shared without accelerating the cycle of poverty, hunger, despair and human degradation
that is visible everywhere because of the runaway population explosion.