Despite adverse travel advisories from foreign governments, tourists from temperate countries continue to come to enjoy the sultry climate and hospitality in the Philippines.
Based on records of the Department of Tourism’s Office of Research and Statistics, a double digit increase in tourist arrivals from all markets were significantly recorded during the first semester of 2004.
Arrival and departure cards from airports and shipping manifests from seaports showed that visitor arrivals reached 1,140,517 during the first six months, a 32.4 percent increase from the last year’s figure of 1,083,361 for the same period.
The United States, which continues to issue adverse travel advisories to its nationals leaving for the Philippines, remains the country’s number one market, with 252,612 American travelers coming in during the first semester, a 35.5 percent growth rate year on year.
The United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada, countries with standing travel warnings against the Philippines, also posted positive growth rates for tourist arrivals in the country.
DOT statistics showed that 27,688 English tourists (22.1 percent increase from 22,671), 42, 423 Australians (35.5 percent increase from 31,313) and 31,334 Canadians (32.3 percent increase from 23,681) visited the country during the first six months despite the negative travel advisories.
Taiwan registered a hefty 56.6 percent increase in arrivals, with 58,447 arrivals as compared with 37,323 for the same period last year. However, Japan and Korea contributed the biggest number of travelers, with 184,223 and 179,071 tourists respectively.
Baby-Friendly Hospital Week on Aug. 1-7
The nation observes Baby-Friendly Hospital Week or Breastfeeding Week from August 1 to 7 to highlight the importance of breastfeeding in reducing the risk of malnutrition, infection and death among newborn babies.
The Department of Health (DoH) is revitilizing the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) program by conducting national workshops and by reorienting hospital personnel, particularly newly hired staff on breastfeeding, lactation management, rooming in, the Milk Code and the Breastfeeding Act.
Hospital management are also reminded to strictly implement the breastfeeding policy.
The Center for Health Development said the BFHI program in the country has adopted a strategic planning for three years (2003-2006) which seeks to make 80 percent of babies born in hospitals and non-institutional deliveries exclusively breastfed from birth to six months old by the end of 2006.
The country now has more than a thousand baby-friendly hospitals and maternity clinics from 600 during the late 1990s. Worldwide, more than 14,000 hospitals and maternity centers have been designated as baby-friendly. A hospital or maternity clinic is considered as baby-friendly if it implements the steps to successful breastfeeding that form the basis of the BFHI.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) jointly launched the BFHI in Washington on March 9, 1992. The program seeks to ensure healthier babies in a cheaper and more convenient way. WHO said that at least one million infant lives could be saved a year if the newborns were exclusively breastfed from birth to about six months old. (Christina I. Hermoso)
Education, info on population management
The Citizens Assembly for Reforms and Excellence (CARE) has urged the government, the religious sector and other institutions, and all other agencies concerned with population management, to undertake either individually or in coordination with each other intensive education and information on population management, as well as reproductive health.
Leonardo Q. Belen, CARE chief convenor, and author of the Family Planning Guide handbook, stressed that some proposed population control measures, especially by some legislators, like limiting children up to two or a five-year childless program for couples, are indications of intellectual bankruptcy.
Belen said that setting aside 50 percent of internal revenue allotment (IRA) for local government units for population growth control as proposed also by some legislators is also counterproductive, as it adversely decreases the capacity of LGUs to undertake economic and development programs within their jurisdictions.
