control your fertility, you can‘t control your life, and if you‘re having sex, you‘ve got to be protected against unwanted pregnancy and infection," Halliwell, 27, told reporters after a visit to a slum community in Manila. Those were candid words and controversial in the Philippines, where they run counter to the belief of the Roman Catholic Church. "This is a free country, we don‘t interfere in the right of anybody to go anywhere or say what they believe…(but) we do not need population control, and any effort at safe sex is totally, utterly immoral from top to bottom," said Rev. James Reuter, director of the National Office of Mass Media of the Catholic Church of the Philippines. Halliwell, still known as Ginger Spice although she left the popular all-women band a year ago, visited a clinic behind a public market and spoke to 30 patients of Marie Stopes International in Manila about responsible sex and options for family planning. She later visited a U.N.-funded non-government clinic at a slum community of 40,000. Patricia Hindmarsh, director of London-based Marie Stopes which advises the United Nations Population Fund on reproductive health care, said: "As this is her first assignment as U.N. ambassador of goodwill, I believe she‘s going to have a wonderful career ahead of her." Satish Mehra, United Nations Population Fund country representative to the Philippines, said Halliwell‘s fame would help the U.N.‘s awareness campaign for reproductive health. Mehra said Halliwell herself selected the Philippines as her first assignment because she has read that the Asian country has a high population growth rate and a large population of unwed mothers. With 74 million people, the Philippines has an population growth rate of 2.32 percent, one of the highest in Asia and the world. Halliwell is pursuing a solo career after leaving the group in June last year due to differences with her four fellow members. She recently launched a single called "Look at Me".