Health Secretry Francisco Duque said on Monday that all Filipinos should have access to toilets, which he said is a basic necessity, than cellphones. “We have more Filipinos with mobile phones than those with functional toilets,” Duque said, citing data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). Due to this, the DOH continues to promote the Zero Open Defecation Program (ZODP) advocacy and health education campaign. The DOH, through the National Sustainable Sanitation Plan (NSSP), has set an ambitious target that by 2022, all barangays that are practicing open defecation shall be declared Zero Open Defecation (ZOD) status. He said moving beyond the eradication of open defecation towards the safe management of sanitation for all requires a continuous shift in the types of approaches.

Source: The Standard November 27, 2017 18:45 UTC