Around 7,000 employees from five member companies of the Lopez Group will soon be attending seminars to boost their knowledge on responsible parenthood and family planning. This campaign is part of the Family Planning (FP) Program in the Lopez Group, which will be assisted by the USAID-funded Private Sector Mobilization for Family Planning (PRISM) from January to October of 2006.

Lopez Group Foundation, Inc. was awarded a grant for establishing an FP Program in the workplace by USAID through PRISM last January 5, 2006. The approximately two million peso grant will enable five companies to implement an FP program that addresses pressing family planning-related issues of employees. Once the FP Program is installed, the companies are expected to continue after the grant period.

Lopez Group Chairman Oscar M. Lopez and PRISM Chief of Party Leif Doerring during the Grant Agreement Signing Ceremony for Family Planning in the Workplace last March 16, 2006, Renaissance Hotel, Makati City.

In addition to an educational campaign for the employees, the personnel of participating company clinics will undergo trainings on how to conduct FP counseling and the capacity of the Meralco Corporate Wellness Center will also be built to become an FP service provider for the Lopez Group to ensure sustainability. Employee volunteers will be selected and trained to become peer motivators – those who will be in charge of encouraging their colleagues to use FP.

By the end of the program, employees from the participating companies will have a deeper understanding of their reproductive health and know the different methods they can use to plan their ideal family size as part of becoming responsible parents.

Installing FP Program in the Lopez Group

Assistant Secretary of Labor & Employment Ma. Teresa Soriano, USAID Mission Director John Lindborg, the Private Sector Mobilization (or PRISM) Chief of Party Lief Doerring and their officials, fellow grantees, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to thank PRISM for inviting the Lopez Group to this signing ceremony, and for this opportunity to extend my personal appreciation for the grant assistance the USAID PRISM is providing to the Lopez companies to strengthen our family planning program.

I consider this partnership between PRISM and local private-sector firms as a significant development in this country Allow me to recall to you the message I made in a speech I delivered at the plenary session of the Asian Forum on Corporate Social Responsibility (or CSR) held in Bangkok, Thailand on September 2003. In that forum which discussed the importance of collaboration in the work of CSR, I pointed out that arresting the population growth in this country was an imperative in getting this country’s economy to move faster. Today, the country’s average per capita income and labor productivity are at about the same levels as it was in early 1980’s because of our rapid population growth. The country doubled its population from 36.8 million in 1970 to 75.6 million in 2000, and if we don’t do anything now, our population will exceed 100 million in less than 10 years time by 2014. Where are we going to put all these additional millions? We are all going to be on top of one another and on top of trees … assuming there will still be trees at that time. As the gathering in Bangkok was an Asian forum among business, government, donors, and academe, I also made a challenge for inter-country tri-sectoral collaborations in this field. More specifically, I asked the help of Senator Mechai Veravaidya, who more than anyone else in Thailand, is responsible for that country’s success in its population control program. But obviously, our Asian neighbors can only join us from the sidelines since the high growth of our population is our problem as a nation, and it is our responsibility as Filipinos to confront this problem squarely, with the help of course of outside agencies like USAID PRISM.

I concluded my speech in Bangkok by saying : “I feel like I am on the Titanic right now. I just do not know how far we are from that fateful iceberg that will crush and sink our ship.” My message remains the same today to all of you, but the analogy should now more appropriately refer not to a big ship like the Titanic but rather to a small leaky wooden boat, a batel if you wish, that is overloaded with passengers and buffeted by big waves in a turbulent sea and therefore in danger of sinking at any moment.

We are all aboard this overloaded batel, but hopefully in collaborating with USAID PRISM we are all charting a course toward a safe harbor where we can unload some of the excess passengers and then proceed more safely towards a better destiny.

From the conference convened by the National Academy of Science and Technology in November last year, I understand that the government is now aiming for a target population growth rate of 1.9% in 2010. I am hoping that with this project the Lopez Group can contribute to the achievement of this goal.

As CEO of the Lopez Group business conglomerate, I issued in the past a directive to all the members of the Group for the integration of family planning and other reproductive health services in the Lopez Group human resource development programs. More than compliance to Article 134 of the Philippine Labor Code and DOLE Department Order, the major members of the Group have looked into reproductive health as part of their wellness program for their employees and corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda.

However, after an assessment of the Group’s Family Planning, our HR team realized that the delivery of the family planning services has been weak and limited. In one company last year, there were 70 pregnancies. The company baseline surveys indicated there were inadequacies such as availability and dissemination of information, in the referrals for Family Planning services and counseling, and in the provision of various Family Planning methods that were not available at the company premises. The status of the Family Planning program was aggravated when the government’s assistance in the provision of family planning supplies stopped in October 2003 and the beneficiaries were advised to buy their own supplies. Unfortunately, this development also affected the monitoring of the program and the critical component of putting in place a written reproductive health/ family planning policy.

In the workshop our HR teams had conducted before they conceptualized this project, they identified the barriers in implementing a successful reproductive health and family planning program which included: (1) the lack of interest and reluctance of the employees to participate in family planning seminars, because of the delicate and personal nature of the subject that is not discussed in the open. Also, since majority of the employees in a large company is male, a family planning program approach has to be recast to suit its audience that will encourage the participation of male employees. Further, (2) there is lack of prioritization or support from some of the CEOs. It was realized that CEO’s support is very important since if they do not see the value of family planning , the funds for the program can easily be removed during company cost-cutting or budget re-alignment.

Under this project with USAID PRISM, the Lopez Group has identified five companies participating in the Family Planning program by first week of October this year . These are Meralco, ABS CBN Broadcasting Corp., Sky Cable, Tollways Management Corp., and First Sumiden Circuits. Together, they have over 9,000 employees in the reproductive age. This project will address the needs of those employees willing to volunteer to join this program.

Through this project, these Lopez Group companies will strengthen their reproductive health and family planning program by gaining the support of their CEOs and senior officials through education and information campaigns on the benefits of investing in the Family Planning program. They will install a program that is employee-centered and targeting the predominantly male workforce. The Family Planning program will build on the in-house capability of the Group such as Meralco’s Corporate Wellness Center and also will establish links to private sector family planning service providers like the Friendly Care Foundation. The participating companies will have activities that include profiling of employees according to their Family Planning needs, customizing a Family Planning program design and implementation plan, the evaluation of clinic facilities and service provider capability to provide Family Planning services; and the setting-up of a peer motivators program. In addition, there will be capability-building activities, regular evaluation to determine the progress of the program and to make it a sustainable component of the human resource and corporate social responsibility agenda.

The Lopez Group Foundation, Inc (or LGFI) which coordinates the CSR work of 8 different Foundations operating in our Group will also be responsible for coordinating and monitoring the grant from PRISM. It serves as the Group’s mechanism to respond effectively to the need to increase the participation of the number of companies and to strengthen the capacity of those with on-going programs. Moreover, I should mention that the Lopez Group Foundation Inc. has for its mission to act as a bridge for bringing hope for the well-being of our Filipino families, our kapamilya, here and abroad. In the service of our kapamilyas, be they the employees who we work with, the communities we serve, the other stakeholders we cooperate with, I have made sure that the important issues of population are addressed by our corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda.

We have learned from our Asian neighbors that their sharp reductions in poverty was a result of sustained economic growth, attributable to good economic policies coupled with a strong population policy. The appeal to our political and church leaders must be reinforced until the country has a workable and consistent population policy. We need the cooperation of all groups in society to successfully confront this very serious problem.

The Lopez Group of companies who I represent is fully committed to charting this course we are taking with PRISM to its successful completion. I am looking forward to its replication in the other Lopez Group companies and the application of the learnings from this project to our endeavors outside of the workplaces- in the communities we are in - as initiatives like this will ultimately reduce the pressures coming from our rapid population growth. Here’s our best wishes of successful project implementation to PRISM and to you all my fellow grantees.

Thank you.