Rise in the incidence of child poverty alarming
A study was made to show how rise in child poverty has increased from 2009 with 13.4 million to the present with 10 to 75 million. These are children below 18 who are deprived of food, shelter, education, information, and opportunities to solve their problems. Eight out of 10 have no safe water and sanitary toilets in the rural areas. Some children are forced to work or worse to be involved in human trafficking. Their woes are endless. They are born poor, live poor, and die poor. This is an old story for me. When I go to slum areas, I imagine these are places where there are “children factories”. There are children roaming in the streets. I also read that in the evacuation centers in Albay to escape from Mayon volcano’s eruption there are more than 600 pregnant women. Daily there are one to three women giving birth. The Philippines holds a record as one of the most populated third world countries in the world. Why are there so many children in the poor sector of our country? The rich ones have one to three children at most.
When I interviewed poor couples who do not limit the number of their children, their reason was this. They have to because they need them when they grow up to work in the rice fields. In the city or province, they can work as helpers, house maids, laundry women or “yayas”. At home, I think we have housemaids from several generations of the same family. Something must be done about this abject state of life of the poor. The root cause of these incidences is the lack of concern of the more highly educated and richer citizens to reach out to these poorer ones. We are in a position to help them. Let us find feasible solutions. I have been a Pro-Life advocate since the 1950’s up to now. Let us have natural family planning programs based on morally accepted norms.
The RH bill had been exhaustibly argued about and discussed so I will not deal with that now. I will explain the natural family planning method in a common man’s language, scientifically proven to be effective, and needs only the cooperation of a loving pair of husband and wife.
The bases for a successful program to limit family size to the number of children a couple can provide for in all aspects of rearing a child should be defined. To limit children by legislation is against the rights of parents to decide how many children they want to have. The natural family planning which I will explain in detail is called the “mucus method “or the Billings’ Method named after its exponent, Dr Evelyn Billings. The loving couple, husband and wife need only a calendar and pens (red and black). The formula is this, “I can feel it” and with love, I will follow it. Intrigued? Let me elaborate.
A couple wants to know when it is safe to make love and not have a baby. More important is when to make love and have a wanted baby. Let us start. The couple sits together and records these carefully. The menstruation is a good starter because blood flow is easily seen. The couple put a red mark on these days. Use your own signs say F for flow. Then carefully notice the “mucus flow” of the wife daily. This appears at the surface of the vagina. The mucus is called “puting regla” or “white mens”. The appearance may be hard or coarse, then pasty or less coarse, and finally juicy or like the white of raw egg. Make TM, PM, and JM the symbols for these in the calendar. Leave days with no mark if there is no flow. Then, you go to another menstrual flow and mark these days F, You have finished one menstrual cycle which differs among women. Continue marking your calendar. Be patient. Do not get mixed up with semen flow in your recording. Do not make love this time. You will notice that the cycle is repeating itself every menstrual flow. Now, you two have the complete information on how to plan your family naturally. No cumbersome precaution by using any contraceptives as condom, diaphragm, IUD or taking in any oral substances. Everything is about loving and caring between husband and wife and their calendar.
Look at this intently. The JM is most crucial. These are your fertile period. Of the three days the middle is the PEAK DAY – I00% your wife will conceived a baby. Do not make love or have sexual intercourse on this day if you do not want a baby yet. The adjoining two days are also possibly fertile days. Precaution is done here. All the other days of the month you are free to make love and no baby will be conceived. Remember husband and wife must agree to follow this. It takes two to tango.
As explained by science, this happens on the peak day. The fertile mature egg cell, the ovum of the mother is fertilized by the fertile mature sperm cell of the father. This fertilized ovum called the zygote settles in the womb or uterus of the mother. Here it will develop into a new born baby lasting nine months called pregnancy period. If there is no sexual intercourse as in unmarried women, the ovum with the membrane in the uterus will produce the menstruation releasing blood from the vagina. If married and there is sexual intercourse on Peak Day the mother becomes pregnant and will not menstruate for nine months till a baby is born.
A well planned family will give the couple time to educate their children from birth to adulthood. This is one sure way to lessen or hopefully totally eradicate the incidences of child poverty in our country. It will take time to achieve this. At least, we have done our part. For comments text cp no. 09202112534.