Online weight management consultations in Tacloban

Weight management care for people in Tacloban

Obra provides care through telehealth, and it can serve patients in all cities in the Philippines. For someone in Tacloban, the process starts online.

You start with a free assessment. A licensed doctor reviews it. If the doctor prescribes it, Obra connects you with a pharmacy that offers compounded semaglutide or compounded tirzepatide, prepared by a licensed pharmacist. Obra is not a pharmacy, and it does not prescribe or dispense medicines itself.

Compounded semaglutide is not the same product as Ozempic, Wegovy or Rybelsus. Compounded tirzepatide is not the same product as Mounjaro or Zepbound.

The regulator's office is in Tacloban City

Tacloban is the Eastern Visayas city that hosts the FDA Philippines field office for Region VIII. The FDA's 2024 List of Offices places it at the Perpetual Help Credit Cooperative Bldg., Calanipawan Road, Barangay 62-A, Tacloban City, with the email rfoviii@fda.gov.ph.

Other offices that matter for patients:

• DOH: the Eastern Visayas Center for Health Development is in Palo, Leyte, at the Gov't. Center in Brgy. Candahug, not in Tacloban City itself.
• PhilHealth: both the PRO VIII regional office (Abucay) and the Tacloban Local Health Insurance Office (Fatima Village) are in the city.

To check whether a medicine is registered, FDA Philippines points the public to its Verification Portal at verification.fda.gov.ph. It asks people to report suspected unregistered or counterfeit products to ereport@fda.gov.ph or through its e-Sumbong platform. Our guides on how to spot fake GLP-1 pens and whether peptides are legal in the Philippines explain what the portal shows.

Eastern Visayas in numbers

The table of health facts for Tacloban on this page lists each figure with its source. Three things stand out.

First, Tacloban is a city in one of the least urbanized regions in the country. PSA's 2024 census highlights say Eastern Visayas recorded the lowest level of urbanization of any region, at 17.3 percent. Within the City of Tacloban itself, 60.3% of residents live in urban barangays.

Second, overweight and obesity in the region track the national figure almost exactly. The 2023 National Nutrition Survey found 57.0% of adults aged 20 to 59 in Eastern Visayas had overweight or obesity, compared with 57.1% for the Philippines.

Third, high fasting blood glucose was less common in the region than nationally: 5.8% of adults aged 20 to 59, against 7.5% for the country. That is a single fasting test result, not a diagnosis.

Pens and Tacloban's heat: what the labels say

PAGASA's climate normals for its Tacloban City station (1991 to 2020) show an average daily maximum of 31.4 °C across the year, rising to 32.5 °C in May.

The inserts word the storage limits as follows:

All three inserts say not to freeze the pen. The full label text is in our guide to storing GLP-1 pens.

Getting a prescription legally

RA 10918, the Philippine Pharmacy Act, says in Section 33: "Prescription medicines may be dispensed only by a duly registered and licensed pharmacist and only with a valid prescription of a physician, dentist, or veterinarian."

A licensed doctor reviews your free assessment before anything is prescribed. A doctor may also issue an e-prescription for a branded medicine such as Ozempic or Mounjaro if you qualify; Obra does not supply these, so the pharmacy of your choice fills it and you pay that pharmacy.