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Cross or a Condom

Ronnabelle 15, 5 months pregnant, watches karaoke with her boyfriend in the slums of Parola, Tondo district. Teenage parenthood is widespread in the Philippines, especially among the poor. Two thirds of the country’s poorest girls give birth before age 20. The culturally and politically conservative nature of the society creates a scarcity of family planning services.

Manila, the capital of the Philippines, is one of the fastest growing cities on earth and evidence of population pressure is everywhere. Tens of millions of people in the Philippines live in poverty and the country also has one of the highest birth rates in Asia. In this devoutly Catholic country there are moves to introduce a reproductive health bill to provide free contraception. The Church, fearing a breakdown in family values, is fiercely resisting the move, and blames the widespread poverty on bad government rather than population growth.