This year in Philippines men will have a safer Valentine’s Day. Men buying flowers for the day of love were also being given free condoms.

Two tents were set up by the health department that carried slogan ‘Are you sexually active?’ This was happening at Manila's Dangwa wholesale flower market a day prior Valentine’s Day.

Leaflets based on safeguards against sexually transmitted diseases with the ‘Be Safe Always, Valentine’ packs of condom was also being circulated.

President Gloria Arroyo's government, however, maintained distance from this promotion following church's opposition to birth control in Philippines.

Arroyo spokesman Ricardo Saludo said on government radio, "Our policy on condoms is very simple, we do not give out condoms for contraception. If they want to use it for other matters that is none of our business." Eric Tayag, an epidemiologist, however, stated that the government needs to support such promotions following rising AIDS cases in the country.

"Most people who have AIDS don't even know they already carry the virus," he said. It was reported last month stated that the country was already fighting population explosion as one out of three newborns was unwanted.

Presently the Roman Catholic Church does not support artificial birth control and has never supported programmes meant for controlling the population.