Espanol, L. M., Jr. (2016). Achieving desired fertility rate and addressing overpopulation in the Philippines (Unpublished master's thesis). Public Management Development Program, Development Academy of the Philippines.

Public Management and Development Program Senior Executives Class Batch 5 Thesis (SEC)--Development Academy of the Philippines.

This policy paper discusses the problem of overpopulation in the Philippines as a result of high fertility which is primarily a consequence of not achieving the desired fertility rate of couples and individuals. While the ideal number of children is around 3, the actual number of children in rural areas in the country is still 5, especially among poor women (PSA, 2013). This is mainly due to lack of knowledge on contraception that resulted to non-use of safe, effective and reliable family planning methods. Having high fertility in the Philippines have externalities or unintended effects to others, which are both positive and negative. Having too many children may mean more supply of labor in the future for the country's development. At the household level, it may mean more hands to work for household shores. However, too many children also mean more classrooms and hospitals to build, and more employment opportunities to create. Failure to address such externalities would result to uneducated, sickly and unproductive citizens of the country. Considering that couples and individuals who have produced too many children are mostly the poor and therefore cannot afford to contain the negative externalities among themselves, the government is expected to come in and do something about the situation. The first thing that the government should do is to determine why such externalities exist. It has to examine failures from both the market and the government systems. On market failures, information asymmetry and imperfect information are the important factors. This means that there is insufficient or imbalanced information on family planning which prevents population, especially the poor, from doing informed decision-making on family planning use. It also means that there is a problem of affordability and access to family planning services, especially among those who cannot afford to pay for such services. On the other hand, the government may have failed in terms of "moral hazard" because while local government units (LGUs) are mandated under the Local Government Code to provide family planning services to their constituents, the national government is also procuring family planning commodities as subsidy to LGUs. In this way, LGUs are not encouraged to provide sufficient budget for family planning information and services because they can rely on the national government under the RPRH Law to do it for them. This paper proposes policy options that will address: (a) information asymmetry and imperfect information through "Male Involvement in Reproductive Health and Family Planning", including massive information drive on family planning, (b) non-affordability of family planning services for the poor through "Door-to-Door Family Planning Information and Services", and (c) moral hazard and accountability by "Imposing high penalty to Local Chief Executives (LCEs) who failed to provide sufficient family planning information and services to their poor constituents, and providing incentive to LCEs who provided sufficient funds for the family planning program". The policy proposals were subjected to evaluation criteria to determine the best option using the Framework for Analysing Effects of Public Policy. Specifically, the evaluation riteria are effectiveness, unintended effects, equity, cost, feasibility, acceptability, and sustainability. After subjecting the policy options to the evaluation criteria, the results are the following in the order of priority: "Door-to Door Family Planning Information and Services". "Male Involvement in Reproductive Health and Family Planning, including massive information drive on family planning", and "Imposing high penalty to LCEs who failed to provide sufficient family planning information and services to their poor constituents, and providing incentives to LCEs who provided sufficient funds for the family planning program".