|
Community Development Part 2 |
 |
(continued from Community Development Part 1)
With Msgr. Peling Dompor the main lecturer on family planning, the Church got involved in the program. We said he was a hit. He would open his talk by saying, “I will show you that God Himself is in favor of family planning.” He would then draw a circle on the blackboard and point to it as a woman’s cycle. “Medical science has found that a few days before and after her period are ‘baby days’, the rest of the days of the month are ‘non-baby’ days. I suggest to the husbands and wives to get busy on these days so that on the ‘baby days’ you can rest and be continent.” Invariably, this would elicit smiles and even laughter.
He would add, “God designed the cycle and right here we can see that He is in favor of Family Planning.”
Msgr. Peling would proceed to deal on the other means of birth control. The pills, he said, that were dumped into the country by the USA are big ones, designed for American women who are much bigger than Filipinas. Pills can also trigger thrombophlebitis, thrombo-imbolic and cerebro-vascular disorders, coronary artery or schematic disorder, and not to be dispensed to those who are known or are suspected of having carcinoma of the breast.
While pill acceptors are supposed to be interviewed for their history, and subjected t physical examination and laboratory tests, all that a Popcom worker did was to give the pills and that was that.
On IUD insertions, Msgr. Peling revealed that several women had sought his counsel regarding continuous blood flow they were suffering. Msgr. Dompor is a doctor – of Canon Law – but not of medicine, all he could do, he said, was to give them his spiritual advice and for tem to see an MD.
He related the story of a couple from Bagiuo who had three children aged 13, 9 7 all of whom were enrolled in an exclusive school. On a Saturday the children joined an outing by all those in the elementary department. The van the three were assigned to fell in a deep ravine. All passengers died. The parents several years before the tragedy submitted to tubal ligation and vasectomy. They could no longer beget children.
Condoms Msgr. Peling compared to a pair of latex gloves. You touch something the feeling is entirely unlike touching with your bare hands. The same sensation holds for condoms.
Concluding his lecture, Msgr. Dompor said that he would not even discuss abortion because it is downright murder. The living beginning of a life created by God, in the womb of its mother, is snuffed by criminal parents conniving with an abortionist.
FOOD PRODUCTION.
The 60 heads of families attending the three-night session were encouraged to put up “dry refrigerators” behind their back yards, kitchen gardens planted to nutritious vegetables that can serve as part of their daily fare. Recommended were kamongay, yellow squash, string beans, tangkong, camote tops, mongo, condiments like native onions, pepper, and ginger.
Not recommended were cabbage, eggplant, and upo, because of their lack of nutritional values. Eggplant and upo were found by UP Los Baños to contain 98% water.
ENVIRONMENTAL SANITATION.
What was stressed was constant cleaning of houses and surroundings, and, most of al, for every house to have a sanitary toilet.
PRESERVATION OF MARINE RESOURCES.
Hammered into the minds of the participants is the fact tat we Filipinos are a fish-eating people and depend on our intake of protein from fish. Americans and Europeans get their protein fix from meat. Protein malnutrition results in aedema.
The depreciatory acts of mindless men have caused men have caused the dwindling supply of fish from our sea waters. Corals and sea beds are being destroyed.
Siltation. When areas in the hinterlands are rendered bald by the wanton cutting of trees, top soil are washed down every time it rains. Eventually, the soil find their way t the sea, covering the corals. The delicate parts of the corals are their polyps. When these get covered by silt the corals die, and less fish as a consequence. Dumping non-biodegradable materials like plastics and acids kills corals even more.
On the advise of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, we fashioned artificial reefs out of worn-out car tires. We installed these in Manga fishermen had a bonanza.
Muro-ami destroys our seabeds. Children who are packed like sardines in the small boats would be made to swim with bamboo poles with which they would pound the seabed to drive the fish to the net spread in front of them.
Mangroves play a distinct role in maintaining the ecology of the sea. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. Mangroves, therefore, provide the oxygen needs of fishes. Mangroves also act as a buffer against strong waves that eat up stone walls on the sea shore. (continued next week)