Announcement: Visayas Media Advocates

The PCIJ is conducting a three-day seminar-workshop on February 21-23, 2007 in Bohol (venue to follow) mainly for community journalists in the Visayas on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This is a partnership with the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) to orient journalists on basic information about the MDGs, the status and > trends, issues and challenges in achieving the goals. The training is a way of creating greater awareness and knowledge on the MDGs among journalists so they can help bring about sustained monitoring and media coverage by coming up with articles/features on the said themes.Please recommend mid-level journalists from Bohol, Leyte, Samar, Dumaguete, Bacolod, Iloilo, Aklan, Capiz and Antique who are assigned to beats covering the following MDGs:

Goal 1: Eradicate poverty
Goal 2: Achieve Universal Education
Goal 3: Promote Gender Equity
Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality
Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

Since there are only 16 slots available, PCIJ cannot guarantee that those recommended will make it to the final list. Thus, request to submit sample stories to facilitate the selection process would be beneficial.

Arming Ourselves for the Real War of the Millennium

Editorial for the upcoming issue of LINK:

When you hear the words "Millennium Development Goal," you think of lofty projects that would take a thousand years to achieve. But when the UN countries set the MDGs, they were trying to think of all of us right here... right now...

To dramatize the immediacy of attaining the MDGs, the US-based organization known as Make Poverty History contracted a major advertising company to come up with print ads for the American consumers, the ones who don't care about these MDGs.

One of the ads has a half-full garbage receptacle with the words: "This bin swallows up more calories than a Nigerian child gets in a single week." and then on smaller print below is written: "Millennium Goal # 4: To cut the death rate among children by 65%." Another has a toilet bowl with the words above it: "This toilet consumes more drinking water in a single flush than someone from Burkina Fasso gets in a whole month." This illustrates MDG # 7 to create better living conditions for everyone by ensuring environmental sustainability. Another has a dressed chicken with the label: "This chicken received more medication during its lifetime than a child from East Timor." This is MDG # 6 which speaks of combatting HIV and AIDS, malaria and other illnesses.

So whenever you throw your garbage, flush the bowl or eat chicken, these comparisons linger in your mind. Or do they?

The MDGs are achievable if we move now and yet many of us don't even know that the conditions we are trying to eliminate do exist. The Philippines has announced that we are halfway through attaining these goals. Our target year is 2015 and we are eight years away. But for a starving child, that is eternity. A big number of Filipino children do not reach their fifth birthday. Our government policy-makers also target the MDGs as if they are mutually exclusive from one another. For example, they have a dismal reproductive health program, ignoring the fact that almost half of the MDGs would be addressed if there would be accessible and available reproductive health care and services.

The Philippine Media Advocates for Development & Empowerment, or PhilMADE for brevity, headed by the PNGOC - UNFPA Media Coordinators have been made aware of these conditions because their area of jurisdictions happened to be the ten (10) poorest provinces at the time they were selected. Some had progressed but some had become stuck in the quagmire of poverty. Because they belong to the media, their role is to communicate to the world that poverty comes in many forms in their provinces. But they are also there to show that hope is alive and that the people are finding ways to come out of the squalor.

Here we chronicle the ways the provinces are fighting the war against poverty and how, in their own little ways, they have endured and succeeded.

written by Frank Cimatu, Area Media Coordinator - Mt. Province (Correspondent, PDI-North Luzon)

Have a blissful NEW YEAR!

Remember the past without regret.....

Handle the present with great confidence.....

Prepare for the future without fear.

May the Year 2007 bless us not only with opportunities

but also challenges that will make each of our lives more meaningful

and worth living.

To you dear Media Partners and Friends,

A Blessed and Blissful NEW YEAR!!!

The PDS Advocacy Team

Watch the MTV we did, using the Pinoy Dream Academy (PDA) theme as music...

The PDS (Population Development Strategies) Advocacy Cluster namely, POPCOM-PMO, PNGOC, PLCPD, ECOP and FORUM presented this MTV during the UNFPA party last Decemeber 15, 2006 held at J.V. Del Rosario Ballroom, 4th Floor, AIM Conference Center, Legaspi Village, Makati City...


Guided by its lyrics, Paolo and I chose pictures to match the song...

This was the way we sang the song... (we changed some of it to suit our advocacy: read below)

Watch the MTV and sing with it... =)

and to Paolo, special thanks for the effects and the logo of "PDS Academy" in the MTV...


PDS THEME

Ang bawa't tao'y magkakaiba
Iyong makikita

Iba't Ibang istorya... Iba't Ibang paniniwala

Ngunit... Nagsisikap
Para sa Pangarap
Magsakripisyo
pawis binubuno

Nagbabago... Ganyan ang tao...
Itanim sa puso dahil.....

CHORUS:

Nais nating marating
"PAGPASA ng RH BILLS"
Di kami titigil
papatunayan sa buong mundo
Kayang kaya natin to...
Di kami susuko...

---------------

Nag-iisang damdamin
ang ating aawitin
ihahayag ating mithiin

Itatayong Bandila, ng "adbokasiya"
Pilipino taas ang kamay, umawit ka at...

Ika'y magsikap...
Para sa pangarap...

Magsakripisyo...
Pawis Ibuno...

Ika'y matuto
Ganyan ang tao...

Itanim sa puso dahil....

CHORUS:

Nais nating marating
PAGPASA ng RH BILLS
Di kami titigil
Sisigaw sa buong mundo
Kayang kaya natin to...
Di kami susuko...

BRIDGE:

Nakikinig ka ba?

Imulat mo ang inyong mga mata
"Dinggin ang sigaw ng aming damdamin..."
"Ito ang aming hangarin…."

Repeat CHORUS

Lybrel: the pill that eliminates the menstrual cycle...

From livescience.com.

A new year-round contraceptive pill called Lybrel, which eliminates menstrual cycles altogether, appears to be safe and effective, researchers report.
Lybrel is not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but a decision is expected next year. Currently, there are contraceptives available that reduce the number of menstrual periods to four a year, but this is the first study that shows it is safe to eliminate menstrual periods. The report is published in the December issue of Contraception.

"One advantage to using this pill is that you take one pill regularly with the expectation that you are not going to have a regular menstrual bleeding period," said lead researcher Dr. David F. Archer, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Eastern Virginia Medical School.
The downside is that some women who use this pill will have some bleeding or spotting, Archer said. "You get rid of the anticipated menstrual period, but you replace it with some erratic, unpredictable bleeding or spotting," he said. "So, this is a group of women who are going to be willing to put up with that type of nuisance bleeding."

This unpredictable bleeding and/or spotting affects about 20 percent of the women taking the pill after a year, and it can last up to six days, Archer said. "It's impossible to predict which women will have bleeding and spotting," he added. However, it is the main reason that 18.5 percent of the women of the 8 percent who quit the study quit, he noted.

Another benefit to this pill is the elimination of menstrual cycle-related symptoms, such as mood changes, menstrual cramps and headaches, Archer said. In the study, which was conducted at 92 sites in North America, Archer's group used a birth-control pill consisting of 20 micrograms of ethinyl estradiol and 90 micrograms of levonorgestrel. The pill was developed by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.

The researchers gave the pill to 2,134 sexually active women, aged 18 to 49. The women took a pill daily without any breaks.\nDuring the 18 months of the study, the number of days of bleeding decreased progressively. After one year, 79 percent of the women reported an absence of bleeding. Moreover, 58.7 percent of the women reported having no menstrual cycles. In addition, only about one woman out of a hundred will become pregnant while taking the pill, Archer said. One expert says that because of the incidences of bleeding, this pill isn't for every woman. "The main advantage is that this continuous pill provides a lower dose than other continuous oral contraceptive pills like, Seasonale," said Dr. Philip D. Darney, chief of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at San Francisco General Hospital and the University of California, San Francisco. "Women who want to avoid menses and take a pill continuously, which for some women may provide greater efficacy and fewer side effects, will be able to use an 'ultra low-dose' pill, which may have some advantages for rare adverse effects of oral contraceptives, like thrombosis," Archer said. "Still, the main reason for stopping this pill was bleeding disruptions, so, it won't suit all pill users."Another expert is concerned with the high number of women who continued to experience bleeding while taking the pill."I think continuous contraception is a great idea," said Dr. Camelia Davtyan, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Nevertheless, the rate of uterine bleeding-related complications is quite high."Davtyan thinks that to really test its efficacy, this new pill should be tested against the standard birth-control pill in a clinical trial. In addition, she said she is concerned that nothing is known about any side effects from the long-term use of this pill.

The researchers gave the pill to 2,134 sexually active women, aged 18 to 49. The women took a pill daily without any breaks.

During the 18 months of the study, the number of days of bleeding decreased progressively. After one year, 79 percent of the women reported an absence of bleeding. Moreover, 58.7 percent of the women reported having no menstrual cycles.
In addition, only about one woman out of a hundred will become pregnant while taking the pill, Archer said.

One expert says that because of the incidences of bleeding, this pill isn't for every woman.
"The main advantage is that this continuous pill provides a lower dose than other continuous oral contraceptive pills like, Seasonale," said Dr. Philip D. Darney, chief of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at San Francisco General Hospital and the University of California, San Francisco.

"Women who want to avoid menses and take a pill continuously, which for some women may provide greater efficacy and fewer side effects, will be able to use an 'ultra low-dose' pill, which may have some advantages for rare adverse effects of oral contraceptives, like thrombosis," Archer said. "Still, the main reason for stopping this pill was bleeding disruptions, so, it won't suit all pill users."

Another expert is concerned with the high number of women who continued to experience bleeding while taking the pill. "I think continuous contraception is a great idea," said Dr. Camelia Davtyan, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Nevertheless, the rate of uterine bleeding-related complications is quite high."

Davtyan thinks that to really test its efficacy, this new pill should be tested against the standard birth-control pill in a clinical trial. In addition, she said she is concerned that nothing is known about any side effects from the long-term use of this pill.

LGBT organisations recognized by UN-ECOSOC

Historic recognition of LGBT organisations at the United Nations: one of ILGA’s regions and two of its members granted consultative status.

Yesterday, 11 December 2006, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) granted consultative status to three gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender organisations: to ILGA-Europe, the European Region of the International Lesbian and Gay Association, to the Danish and German national lesbian and gay association, LBL and LSVD. Consultative status granted by the ECOSOC allows NGOs to enter the United Nations, participate in its work and speak in their own name. No other LGBT group till this day enjoyed this right, apart from COAL, the Coalition of Activist Lesbians, a group based in Australia.

“State homophobia has been hit and will not remain unchallenged anymore,” says Rosanna Flamer Caldera, Co-Secretary General of the International Lesbian and Gay Association. “It is a very special moment for the LGBT movement: this historic decision follows the statement made by Norway at the UN Human Rights Council on behalf of 54 countries, pushing that forum to address sexual orientation and gender identity.

ILGA, a federation of 550 LGBT groups around the world, has been working for a number of years to have sexual orientation and gender identity come out at the United Nations. The first speech at the UN on LGBT rights was given in its name in 1992. In 2006, ILGA held its world conference in Geneva, European headquarters of the United Nations and organised four panels on LGBT issues at the second session of the Human Rights Council. ILGA also initiated a campaign to have an increasing number of LGBT groups apply for ECOSOC status. In a clear demonstration of uneasiness and an attempt to avoid any debate on the topics of sexual orientation and gender identity, countries sitting at the ECOSOC postponed the debate, using procedural manoeuvres from one meeting to another.

“This last meeting of the ECOSOC is the fourth this year where countries have had to discuss these applications from LGBT groups,” comments Rosanna Flamer-Caldera. “Some states argue or fear we may be asking for special rights and use this as an alibi to block us from entering the UN,” she continues. “This is not a question of special rights. It is a basic question of equality and universality of human rights. We demand the right not to be discriminated against on the grounds of who we are, as lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender persons.

On the international level, this starts with the United Nations recognising the mere fact LGBT people exist, that they can organise as groups and, as such, participate in UN work and protest against the many human rights violations we still suffer from around the world”.

ILGA thanks the many NGOs which have supported this campaign - with special recognition to Arc International and ISHR, the International Service for Human Rights.

In 2007, applications from seven other LGBT groups will be considered by the ECOSOC. Patricia Curzi & Stephen Barris ILGA, International Lesbian and Gay Association

Ifugao execs pass Reproductive Health Law... 2nd in the Philippines

Published on page A18 of the December 4, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

BAGUIO CITY -- Ifugaos are now guided by a law that protects their reproductive health rights.

The Ifugao Reproductive Health and Responsible Parenthood Ordinance of 2006 (Provincial Ordinance 2006-033) was highlighted as an important piece of local legislation during the World’s AIDS Day celebrations in Lagawe town on Dec. 1.

The ordinance is the second to be approved in the country after Aurora province.

Ifugao Gov. Glenn Prudenciano, who authored and pushed the measure through the provincial board as vice governor in August, said he based his draft measure on the same principles offered by the pending national reproductive health bill.

Prudenciano assumed the gubernatorial post in November after the death of Gov. Benjamin Cappleman.

He said Ifugao residents discovered that there was nothing to fear from reproductive health policies that some critics have labeled as the foundations for an abortion law.

Like the draft reproductive health bill still awaiting plenary discussions in Congress, the Ifugao ordinance makes it the government’s duty to make information, health care services and medicine available to Ifugao residents regardless of their cultural or religious affiliations.

The ordinance states that it is the Ifugao residents’ right “to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of [giving birth to] their children, [as well as] to make other decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence.”

The law grants residents full understanding of all birth control options available to them, Prudenciano said.

The law also obliges government teachers to provide classrooms and out-of-school youths all information necessary to explain to them what reproductive health and sexuality are all about.

Prudenciano said the local government has taken into account the impact of uncontrolled population growth on their economy.

He said Ifugao, until recently, was considered the fourth poorest province in the Philippines.

“Government decided we must graduate [from that rank] so it pumped investments into the province. But I realized that it was not enough because we have a large population who are leaving because they no longer have lands to till,” Prudenciano told the Inquirer.

Providing Ifugao residents proper information about population management and insights into their sexuality is “foresight,” he said, for the local government to sustain economic growth.

Cultural dimension

But there is also a cultural dimension that makes the law necessary, he said.

Ifugao tradition places a high value on family, so some men would replace wives who could not bear them children, he said.

Prudenciano said the law empowers women to deal with this male-centered bias, which still surfaces in some communities of Ifugao province “despite the fact that the general population is now younger and educated.”

“Highland Thoughts,” a compilation of essays, short stories and poems written by Ifugao youths, also showed how tradition could help Ifugaos plan their families.

An article written by Manuel Dulawan enumerates age-old Ifugao values that, he said, are still relevant to present-day family planning principles. Dulawan said Ifugao’s complicated courtship period, the ritualistic obligations once a betrothal is arranged and a “trial period” among couples could delay marriage. He also cited tribal inheritance customs that say “only the first [two] children of the couple are entitled to inherit their parents’ property.”

Article written by: Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon

Click this link to view article on the web:

http://newsinfo.inq7.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view_article.php?article_id=36219

mga "patikim na pics" nung Project Review and Media Planning

When the media goes wild...

... pero this one tops it all... akalain mo, ganito pala si Ernie... still picture kasi... pero imagine this lad singing and dancing to the tune of " nakaka-aliw... nakakabaliw... "... or something like that guys...

MUSLIM INSURGENTS URGES FELLOW MUSLIMS IN SOUTH TO PRACTICE MANILA'S BIRTH SPACING PROGRAM ...

Cotabato City, 27 November (AKI) - In an effort to slow down the ballooning of the country's population, the Philippines largest Muslim rebels has urged all Filipino Muslims to observe Manila's birth spacing program.

Eid Kabalu, spokesperson for the 11,900 strong Moro Islamic liberation Front (MILF), told AdnKronos International that the Assembly of Darul-Iftah, an organization of Islamic religious authorities or imams, has issued guidelines on Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's birth spacing program.

"There's nothing wrong with family planning program. It was reviewed by the Darul-Iftah and they are also endorsing it," Kabalu said.

"We are advising our fellow Muslims to coordinate with government health workers. We encourage Muslim couples to practice it because it will help in all aspects of human life," he added.

The Philippines is 85-percent Catholic. The Church allows only natural family planning methods and considers the use of artificial means of birth control a grievous sin.

Manila's health department family planning program is based on responsible parenthood, which gives married couples the responsibility of spacing their children.

"The government is not banning having children. But what the government is proposing under birth spacing is to lower the birth rate based on the natural cycle of women," regional health officer Abdullah Dumama told AKI.

According to Dumama, a sound population control program would create an informed citizenry, which would in turn practice birth spacing that would result in fewer births.

However, Kabalu stressed that a family planning program for the Muslim community should be anchored on the principles of non-coercion, responsible parenthood and informed choice."

"It does not refer to abortion, neither to birth control but birth or child spacing and should be the couple's decision," he said, quoting what the late MILF chairman, Salamat Hashim, once had told him.

To strengthen his point, he reminded that in 2004, 22 Muslim religious leaders signed a 'fatwah,' – religious edit - affirming that "improved reproductive health conditions benefits individual Muslims and strengthens the Muslim nation socially, economically, politically and in all other aspects of human life."

At the same time, Kabalu added "the fatwah stated that all methods of contraception are allowed as long as they are safe, legal, in accordance with the Islamic Shariah, and approved by a credible physician preferably a Muslim for the benefit of both the mother and the child."

In general, Muslims believe that birth control and prevention of pregnancy are prohibited except when the pregnancy places the mother in danger or cause illness which will affect her life.

Based on the 2000 census, the country's population was growing at the rate of 2.36 percent each year, or 1.6 million babies.

In mid-2006, the population was estimated at over 87 million. By 2025, the number of Filipinos is projected to reach 115.7 million and, given the five-year-old census baseline, the population could hit 100 million in the next five to six years.

Mindanao's population is growing fast at 2.42 percent per year, higher than the national average of 2.36 percent.

In the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the 2.4 million populace is growing by 3.86% with most families having an average household size of 6.13, the highest nationwide. ARMM is also the poorest part of the country.
(Fsc/Jma/Aki)

Article written by Jeoffrey Maitem, PDI-Mindanao Bureau. Jeof also writes for AdnKronos International.

published online at:

Leggi questo articolo:

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.363923325&par=0

MDG album wins the Catholic Mass Media Awards!!!

It may be seen as a thawing of the cold war between the Catholic Church and the advocates for reproductive health. The Catholic Mass Media Award (CMMA) for best music television (MTV) went to "Tayo, Tayo Rin" from "Tayo, Tayo Rin sa 2015: the MDG (Millennium Development Goals) Album" which advocates responsible parenthood and gender equality, among others. The carrier single, "Tayo, Tayo Rin (No One Else But Us)" is the country's version of Live Aid's "Don't You Know It's Christmas" and "We Are The World" with singers like Gary Valenciano, Janno Gibbs, Jaya, Joey Ayala, Joey G. of Side A Band, Julia Abueva, Kitchie Nadal,Kuh Ledesma, Lea Salonga, Martin Nievera, Pops Fernandez, SarahGeronimo, Sharon Cuneta, Aiza Seguerra, APO Hiking Society, Bayang Barrios, Christian Bautista, Freddie Aguilar, Ai-Ai delas Alas and theRivermaya Band doing cameos for free. The song, penned by Cecilia Datu with music by Rico Blanco of Rivermaya, looks at the country's dire social situation (Kung dumaraing ka / Masdan mo ang musmos/ Gusto sanang mag-aral / Ngunit nanlilimos/ Kung nagigipit ka / Masdan mo ang dalaga/ Di maabot angpangarap / Dahil babae siya (If you are complaining watch the childwho wants to go to school but is begging. If you are at a loss for money look at the woman who can't reach her goal because she's awoman) and what we can do to improve it. "Simulan na'ng magtanim ng mabubuting gawain/ Dahil sino pa'ng aani, kundi tayo – tayo rin (Start planting good deeds because who elsewould reap but all of us)," goes one of the choruses.

There are eight songs in the album to signify the eight goals that the Philippines has vowed to achieve on or before 2015, said Tess Fernandez, Program Officer for Advocacy of the United Nations Population Fund(UNFPA). The songs are copyright-free and anyone can copy or download the videos for free as long as they use it to promote the Millennium Development Goals. UNFPA Information Officer Dino Subingsubing, also a member of the album's production staff, said that he was surprised and honored by the CMMA citation. "Astig ang MDG album," Subingsubing said. Philippines is a signatory to the UN Millennium Declaration adopted during the Millennium Summit in September 2000, where it committed to pursue the attainment of eight major goals and 18 targets based on 48 indicators, as embodied in the Millennium Declaration. "For A Better Life" performed by Gary Valenciano is the album's answer to the MDG's goal to eradicate extreme povery and hunger. "Bata PaAko" sung by Julie Abueva calls for universal primary education."Babae" with Lea Salonga, Kuh Ledesma, Pops Fernandez, Sarah Geronimoand Bayang Barrios promotes gender equality and women empowerment. Sharon sung "Kung Sana'y" to help reduce child mortality. Ai Ai and Apo were in tandem for "Sa Sinapupunan Ko" to help improve maternal health. Kitchie Nadal sung "Kalinga" for the MDG goal to stop HIVAIDS, malaria and other diseases. Spy Band featuring Papa Dom sang"Tuloy Tuloy" for environmental sustainability."Alam mo ba ang nadarama ng isang iniiwasan/ Alam mo ba ang naiisip ngisang may sakit/ Mahirap isipin ang mga bagay/ Na di mo kinalalagyan,na di mo nararanasan (Do you know how it feels to be avoided. Do you know what's in the mind of an afflicted. It's hard to think of situations where you weren't been or haven't felt," sang Nadal in"Kalinga". Russel Solitario, Program Manager of the Philippine NGO Council for Population, Health and Welfare said that four (4) of the eight (8) MDGs are directly related to reproductive health, which is anathema to some Catholic groups."To improve maternal health and reduce maternal mortality by ¾ means increase access to RH services including the provision of safe modern methods of family planning gradually from 80 percent in 2010 to 100percent in 2015," Solitario said. To combat the spread of HIV and AIDS, practice ABC -Abstinence, Being faithful and consistent and correct use of Condoms.

Article written by: FRANK CIMATU, PDI-Northern Luzon