A/HRC/21/12 million dollars, its budget is now 912 million dollars, and from 800,000 families, it now covers more than three million families throughout the country. 8. The Philippines has strengthened its Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and Nutrition programme by encouraging facility-based deliveries and training itinerant community health teams on basic and comprehensive emergency maternal obstetric and newborn care. In order to address teenage pregnancies, peer facilitators provide youthfriendly health-care services, including comprehensive sexuality education. 9. Some 5.2 million poor households are now covered by the Philippine health insurance programme, and the Philippines is committed to achieving universal health coverage by 2016. 10. The Philippines has expanded the coverage of its Social Pension programme and increased its budget allocation by nearly seven million dollars to improve the conditions of indigent senior citizens. 11. Since 2008, 16,000 core shelters have been built to provide assistance to families displaced by natural disasters. 12. The delegation stated that the Philippines continued to work hard to increase access to quality education and employment. The education sector received the largest increase in the Government expenditure programme in the amount of 867 million dollars. As a component of the Philippine National Action Plan for Education for All, implementation of compulsory kindergarten plus 12 years of formal basic education has been launched. With the aim of reducing the dropout rate and improving student survival, it has implemented Alternative delivery modes and the Alternative learning system have been launched, as well as a Training-for-work scholarship programme to help job-seekers upgrade their skills and competencies. 13. Agrarian reform has been allocated an additional 349 million dollars for the completion of land acquisition and distribution over a five-year period from July 2009 to July 2014. Farmer beneficiaries have been provided easier access to credit, physical infrastructure support and legal assistance. 14. Since the UPR in 2008, the Philippines has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and Protocol I Additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The Philippines is the first country in Southeast Asia to ratify the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. The Philippines is now a State party to eight core international human rights treaties. 15. Since 2008, the Philippines has taken concrete measures to harmonize its domestic legislation with its obligations under the relevant international human rights treaties to which it is a State party. It enacted the Magna Carta of Women in 2009, a comprehensive law which strengthens the Philippines’ legal and institutional framework in accordance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The Philippines adopted an Anti-Torture Act which is compliant with its obligations under the Convention against Torture. 16. Several new laws have been passed to ensure consistency with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, such as the Act providing for the legitimation of children born to parents below the marriageable age; the Anti-Child Pornography Act and an Act providing for an administrative rather than a judicial process to declare a child legally available for adoption. 4

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