By Perla Lena/PNA
ILOILO CITY — The renaming of the Commission on Population into Commission on Population and Development (CPD), and returning it to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) will not affect its mandate.
During the two-day 2019 first quarter Regional Population Management Conference that ended here Wednesday, PopCom executive director and Undersecretary Juan Antonio A. Perez III, said amid the change in the name and the reversion to NEDA, Presidential Decree 79 or the Revised Population Act of the Philippines is still relevant as reaffirmed by President Rodrigo Duterte when he signed Executive Order (EO) 71 last December.
“PopCom is still supposed to formulate and adopt coherent, relevant, integrated comprehensive plans, programs, recommendations on population as it relates to economic and social development consistent with complementing the population policy,” he said Tuesday.
The population policy includes undertaking a national program on family planning with respect to religious beliefs and values of clients, he added.
He said PopCom, when it comes to family planning has two sides — one is health-related that would result in better health for the people while it also contributes to socioeconomic development.
“This EO recognizes the duality of the family planning program,” he said.
PopCom, from the 1990s up to 2003, was under NEDA but became an attached agency of the Department of Health (DOH) from 2003 until 2018.
EO 71, signed in December last year by Duterte, returned PopCom to NEDA and was renamed as CPD.
