Philippines: Reproductive Health Services

In the Philippines, the government launched a Universal Health Care initiative in 2010, which mandated the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) to provide health insurance coverage to all Filipinos, especially the poor. It also put in place measures to improve and accredit healthcare facilities countrywide. However, access to accredited healthcare providers and to health insurance has remained a challenge for the poor due to lack of financial resources, low levels of awareness, and the geographic remoteness of facilities in rural areas. Access was also hampered by low uptake among the local government units responsible for enrolling poor constituents into the insurance program. In 2012, GPOBA provided support to expand insurance coverage amongst the poor and increasing the number of accredited healthcare providers in five provinces of the Eastern Visayas region—Leyte, Southern Leyte, Samar, Northern Samar and Eastern Samar, which are some of the poorest parts of the country.