Candy vs condoms: Filipino church conducts Valentine’s Day campaign

A condom maker in the Philippines capital Saturday found their Valentine’s Day giveaway challenged by a church group who tried to persuade people to swap the contraceptives for chastity and chocolates. A colourful flower market in Manila became the unlikely battleground over the use of contraception in the Catholic dominated Southeast Asian country as the church group countered the free condoms with chocolates and sweets – complete with printed messages encouraging chastity. “Exchange your condoms for candies, #WeKeepLoveReal,” read the signs carried by volunteers from the Christian advocacy group Filipinos for Life.

Condoms send the wrong message that Valentine’s is about sex, when it’s really about love.

Church volunteer Anna Cosio

The condom handout is a marketing campaign by DTK Health, the country’s biggest condom manufacturer. Offering free condoms alongside stalls selling bouquets of red roses, balloons and chocolates for Valentine’s Day will help erase the stigma attached to contraceptives, the company’s head of marketing Emmanuel Alfonso said. The country’s ultra-conservative Catholic Church continues to preach against contraceptives, likening its use to abortion, despite failing to block legislation to make them widely available to the poor.

I already ate the candies. The condoms, I can’t use it yet because I’m only 16 and I don’t have a girlfriend. Maybe I will keep it in my wallet for good luck.

Danny Villegas

Asia-Pacific condoms