NORTHERN Mindanao and Davao Region account for the largest percentage of teen girls aged 15 to 19 who were ever pregnant, based on the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
Data showed that 10.9 percent of teens in Northern Mindanao and 8.2 percent of teens in Davao Region were ever pregnant.
There were a total of 196 teenagers aged 15 to 19 years old who were ever pregnant in Northern Mindanao and 265 teenagers in the Davao Region.
“We will look into empirical-based decisions on the PPDP: where to start, and what to prioritize in accordance with the new Philippine Development Plan,” Commission on Population and Development (Popcom) Executive Director Lisa Grace S. Bersales said in a recent statement.
“Data and statistics will be used as the basis for prioritizing, for focus, and for monitoring successes,” the newly appointed Population and Development Program (POPDEV) undersecretary added.
Some 7.3 percent of teenagers in Northern Mindanao ever had a live birth and 4.1 percent are currently pregnant at the time of the data collection.
The PSA also said 0.4 percent of teenagers in this region experienced a pregnancy loss which refers to stillbirth, miscarriage, or abortion, according to the PSA.
The data also showed 7 percent of the 15 to 19 year olds in Davao Region ever had a live birth; 1.1 percent are currently pregnant; and 0.3 percent experienced a pregnancy loss.
Based on the data from the PSA, there were a total of 5,531 teenagers aged 15 to 19 years old who were ever pregnant in the Philippines in 2022.
Of this number, based on region, Calabarzon had the highest number at 805 teenagers followed by the National Capital Region (NCR) at 663 teenagers and 651 teenagers in Central Luzon.
However, the number of teenagers who were ever pregnant in Calabarzon only represented 4.9 percent of the population of 15 to 19 year olds and 2.8 percent in NCR or Metro Manila. Nonetheless, the number in Central Luzon represented 8 percent of the total population of teenagers in the region.
“Among women aged 15 to 19 years who have been pregnant as of 2022, the highest percentage was recorded in women aged 19 years (13.3 percent). This was followed by women aged 18 years (5.9 percent) and women aged 17 years (5.6 percent),” PSA said.
“As expected, the lowest percentage of women aged 15 to 19 years who have begun childbearing was for those who were aged 16 years (1.7 percent), followed by women aged 15 years (1.4 percent),” it added.
Meanwhile, Bersales conveyed her goal of steering Popcom in further fulfilling its mandate through the ongoing programs on family planning and reproductive health, adolescent health and development, as well as Popdev integration.
Bersales said that every Filipino family will live decently. This, she said, could be achieved by “putting faces behind population statistics and demography figures.”
“Previously having POPCOM as a partner with friends in research, demography and population, I was really struck by the agency’s tagline of ‘Empowering Filipino families and communities,’” the newly installed ED disclosed. “It was similar to my personal advocacy when I retired from the State University last year.”
The undersecretary envisions Popcom as a government agency effecting positive impact to the citizens, notwithstanding the various socioeconomic challenges the nation is currently facing.
For external linkages, Bernales will harness her involvement in global organizations to strengthen the agency’s international collaborations toward advancing Popdev in the national setting.
She has witnessed how international countries and partners help each other achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs.
The new chief of Popcom vowed to build upon the agency’s core value of teamwork not only with its internal human resource, but closely with the local government units, the academe, as well as civil-society and nongovernment organizations, among many other allies, while further enhancing the commission’s strength in research and development.