THE Visayas Media Advocates for Responsible Parenthood (Vimar) said it strongly condemned “irresponsible parenthood” as it is the root of population crisis.

Just recently, Vimar issued a statement of support to House Bill 5043, known as the “Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2008,” an Act Providing for a National Policy on Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development and for other purposes, as well as to Senate Bill 3122, known as the “Reproductive Health and Population and Development Act of 2009” and Act Providing for a National Policy on Reproductive Health and for other Purposes.

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Responding to the emerging challenges of sustainable development, as well as the intergenerational equity and empowerment of men and women, reproductive health addresses men’s and women’s health issues in its entirety, Vimar said.

The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) marks 2009 as its 15th year of providing opportunity for the Philippines to take stock of where the country stands in terms of Program of Action, Vimar cited.

It added that with the Program of Action, ICPD is targeting to reduce infant, child, and maternal mortality and improve access to reproductive and sexual health services including family planning, and reproductive health.

ICPD hopes to reduce reproductive health care issues by 50 percent in 2015, especially on cutting the number of people living in absolute poverty by 2015, which Vimar said that due to population crisis, this would result to extreme poverty, unemployment, human rights abuses especially on women and children, peace and order, environment related problem such as Climate change, and generally health problems obviously as an aftermath.

Population management and development is an urgent call, Vimar said, adding that population crisis is the root evil of insurgency, poverty, and human rights abuses in the country for already four decades.

The Philippines cannot afford to be complacent in the current situation, Vimar said, stressing that the country face serious problems of unemployment, political unrest and poverty, which burdens the country’s social and health systems.

Vimar, together with other reproductive health advocates, join and support the authors of the bills in the Senate and Congress.

Vimar also pushes for the 2010 political candidates to include reproductive health in their platform of government.

Further, Vimar said the country with its close to 90 million population already lag behind from among her neighbors in the Asia region as to economic condition.

With the nearing of 2010 national elections, Vimar sees the need for a heightened advocacy that would really push political candidates to also advocate in their campaign on reproductive health issues.

Being the fourth member of the estate, Vimar highly support and commit to work as partners of the government, together with the stakeholders, non-government organizations, POs, private organizations, academe, and the existing civil citizens “for reproductive health is everybody’s rights, it’s everybody’s fight, and its everybody’s call.”

Vimar was organized by the Philippine NGO Council on Population and Reproductive Health through the Commission on Population last October 2, 2009. It is composed of media practitioners from the tri-media in Western and Central Visayas.