October 13, 2009, Manila — When Sylvia Pabustan went to a Manila City health clinic seeking family planning services, she was told that the clinic could not give her family planning supplies because “if someone from Manila City Hall found out, [ the clinic] would be reprimanded.” When Ms. Pabustan, whose name has been changed for confidentiality, went to a private clinic, she was told the same thing.
Another woman, Alia Banyana, whose name has also been changed, reported that when she went to Ospital ng Maynila, she was told that they would not provide tubal ligation because they are “Pro-Life.” Ms. Pabustan and Ms. Banyanas’ stories were only a few of the many collected by EnGendeRights , WomenLEAD, and KAKAMMPI and SAMAKANA-Gabriela during community visits in Manila in 2008 and 2009.
Why are women such as Ms. Pabustan and Ms. Banyana being denied access to basic reproductive health services? According to Attorney Clara Rita Padilla , Executive Director of EnGendeRights , Inc., the blame falls on Mayor Atienza’s EO 003 Series of 2000 (“EO”). The EO promotes the use of natural family planning (NFP) and “discourag[es] the use of artificial methods of contraception, like condoms, pills, intrauterine devices, surgical sterilization.”
The EO has resulted in a ban on modern contraceptives from all the Manila-run public health facilities and a denial of information or referral on the full range of contraceptive methods.
According to Atty. Padilla, this policy of promoting NFP alone has cost many poor women in Manila significantly, “As a consequence, some of them ended up having as many as eight more children than they actually desired. While the national average would only show that women usually have one child more than they desired, the disparity between desired and actual number of children is greater for poor women.”
In addition, according to Atty. Padilla, poor women are further impacted by EO 003 because they “do not have the money to pay for their own contraceptive supplies and counseling from private doctors,” unlike wealthier women in Manila . The practice of denying women access to modern family planning in Manila, in addition to harming women such as Ms. Pabustan and Ms. Banyana, is against international law and the Philippines’ international treaty obligations, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) which was ratified by the Philippines in 1981.
The Philippine-based Task Force CEDAW Inquiry, composed of 20 members from various civil society organizations and led by EnGendeRights , WomenLEAD, the Center for Reproductive Rights and International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia-Pacific (IWRAW-AP) submitted a total of three official requests for inquiry for consideration of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee) to investigate discrimination and other treaty violations resulting from the EO.
Atty. Padilla, co-convenor of the Task Force CEDAW Inquiry, said, “The goal of the Task Force is to draw attention to the grave and systematic violations of reproductive rights of Manila residents. The inquiry is a very important procedure that allows the CEDAW experts the opportunity to visit the Philippines to investigate violations committed against women’s reproductive rights.
This request for inquiry is only the second that has been submitted to the CEDAW Committee. This is historical! The impact of such a visit will not only be in the Philippines but in other countries as well where there are similar violations of women’s rights.”



So I used a lot of big words in my title but to keep it simple, I’d like to make Ayala Lands as an example on how companies can sustain local economies by choosing community-based enterprises to supply their industrial needs that include:




