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Honesto General
Philippine Daily Inquirer

The controversy over Reproductive Health Bill No. 5043 swirls around contraception and abortion.

Even Catholics have differing views. They should not. All they have to do is read up on the Catechism of the Catholic Church signed by Pope John Paul II in 1992. Here is what the Catechism says about contraception and abortion.

Contraception. Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, are in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of spouses, encourage tenderness between them and favor the education of authentic freedom. In contrast, “every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” is intrinsically evil.

Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality… The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle … involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.

The state has the responsibility for its citizens’ well-being. In this capacity, it is legitimate for it to intervene to orient the demography of the population. This can be done by means of objective and respectful information, but certainly not by authoritarian, coercive measures. The state may not legitimately usurp the initiative of spouses, who have the primary responsibility for the procreation and education of their children. It is not authorized to promote demographic regulation by means contrary to the moral law.

Abortion. Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person—among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

Since the first century, the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.

Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication “latae sententiae” — by the very commission of the offense — subject to the condition provided by Canon Law. The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.

The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:

“The inalienable right of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being’s right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death.

“The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined … As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s right.”

May I add my puny voice. Surveys on what Filipinos think of Catholic doctrine are totally irrelevant and irreverent. What will the pollsters do next? Conduct a survey on whether or not the Ten Commandments should be abolished?

Finally, if anybody is wondering, my late wife and I raised four sons and four daughters. I now enjoy 17 grandchildren. And I am their best friend.

Mahar Mangahas
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines—The third quarter 2008 Social Weather Survey, fielded Sept. 24-27, had two modules on the topic of reproductive health (RH), one module of three items done on SWS’ own initiative, and a second module of three items commissioned by the Forum for Family Planning and Development (FFPD), a non-government advocacy group.

Last Tuesday, Social Weather Stations (SWS) sent its own RH report to BusinessWorld newspaper, which exercised its right of first publication on Thursday; SWS uploaded the report on its website that day. Last Wednesday,

The FFPD conducted a press conference to report the findings of its separate module; SWS confirms the FFPD materials presented.

The SWS survey asked six questions on the RH topic, the first three of which were FFPD, and the second three being SWS’ own items. The first four items were a battery of Agree/Disagree (A/D) statements, with two of them phrased in opposition to the Reproductive Health and Population Development (RHPD) bill currently being debated in Congress, and with the two others phrased as affirmative to it. The fifth item asked whether the respondent already knew of the RHPD bill. The sixth item asked if the respondent favored it or not. I believe that the A/D battery, being evenly divided in slant, did not introduce affirmation bias to the succeeding items.

Abortion, distribution of contraceptives, and promiscuity. The first test statement of the A/D battery was the anti-RHPD assertion, “The use of legal contraceptives like condoms, IUDs, and pills can also be considered as abortion.” On this, the survey found 33 percent in agreement, and 50 percent in disagreement, in the Philippines as a whole; the others were undecided.

The second statement of the A/D battery was phrased as pro-RHPD: “There should be a law that requires the government to give away legal contraceptives like condoms, IUDs and pills to people who want to avail [themselves] of them.” (In Tagalog, “Gawing katungkulan ng gobyerno ang pamimigay….”) On this, the survey found a strong 68 percent in agreement and only 15 percent in disagreement.

The third statement of the A/D battery was the anti-RHPD assertion, “If family planning would be included in the school curriculum, the youth would become sexually promiscuous.” (The Tagalog for promiscuous behavior was “ay makikipagtalik nang walang pakundangan.”) On this, the survey found 25 percent in agreement, and majority 54 percent in disagreement.

Thus the FFPD module of the three items clearly shows that most Filipinos reject the “abortion” and “promiscuity” arguments against FP, and also advocate government subsidization of it. To my knowledge, this is the first time that the “abortion” and “promiscuity” assertions have been tested in a Philippine opinion poll.

Family planning education and opinion on the RHPD bill. The fourth and last item of the A/D battery was the pro-RHPD “There should be a law that requires the government to teach family planning to the youth.” On this, the survey found 75 percent in agreement and only 10 percent in disagreement.

Then respondents were informed of the RHPD bill (“… a proposal in the House of Representatives that gives the government the duty to promote responsible parenthood through giving enough information to the people, and having safe, legal, affordable and quality reproductive health care services for people who want it”) and asked if they had heard of it or not. The survey found that 46 percent already knew of it, prior to the survey.

The final question, asked of everyone, was on opinion about the RHPD proposal. The survey found 71 percent in favor, 21 percent undecided, and a mere 8 percent opposed. Among those who originally knew of the bill, the score is 84 percent in favor, and 6 percent opposed. Among those who learned of the bill for the first time because of the survey, the score is 59 percent in favor, versus 11 percent opposed. This suggests that public support will grow as information about the bill spreads further.

Thus the three SWS-initiated items, which were included in our survey agenda as a public service independently of the items commissioned by the FFPD, show very strong public support for government action on reproductive health.

The people are not sheep. Cross-tabulations of the results of both the FFPD-commissioned items and the SWS-initiated items show that Filipino opinion on RH is roughly the same for Catholics and non-Catholics, the same for regular (weekly and up) and irregular churchgoers, and the same for the great many who trust, and the few who distrust, the Catholic church.

These findings are not at all unexpected. A 1991 survey of social attitudes towards FP interest groups, done by SWS for the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development, found that “Filipinos do not feel strongly restricted from using family planning methods, either by the rules of their religion, or by the teaching they received in school, or by the advice given by their physicians.”

Filipino interpretation of the teaching of their religion on FP is actually much more permissive than the official teaching of the Catholic church. In 1991, four out of five preferred electoral candidates who favored free choice of FP methods. Analysis of voting intentions showed anti-FP officials in grave risk of not being re-elected.

As Fr. John J. Carroll, S.J., of the Institute of Church and Social Issues, discussant of the SWS study, said: “Although some church officials like to refer to themselves as pastors, in this case the people are not sheep.” (See my book, “The Philippine Social Climate,” Anvil Publishing, 1994, p. 158.)

* * *

Contact SWS: www.sws.org.ph or mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph

Ping Bauzon
Manila Times

The Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development Bill is now awaiting second reading.

And the Catholic Church remains steadfast on opposing House Bill 5043 introduced by Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay.

The public, meanwhile, watches blindly from the sidelines, with no way in nor out in what critics call one of the morally, ethically and scientifically questionable bills in a predominantly Catholic nation like the Philippines.

But while the debate rages on, reproductive health is basically an unknown concept to most Filipino women.

In 1999, the National Statistics Office found that insufficient medical care is the cause of the 3.5 percent of maternal and infant deaths. Nearly 10 years later, the same dire statistics haunt the country—the decrease in infant mortality barely made a dent with the 2.4-percent figure this year.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) points out that worldwide, 170 women per 100,000 live births die every year. In the Philippines, according to the Commission on Population, 10 women die everyday because of complications related to pregnancy or childbirth.

Though not surprising, the figures have raised concerns.

“In general, there is a lack of access to health care and less so in reproductive health care, because many of the services have not yet been installed for women,” Milagros Rivera, executive director of the Institute for Reproductive Health Philippines (IRHphi), told The Manila Times. “Education leading to health-seeking behavior is sorely lacking.”

Global problem

Worldwide, reproductive and sexual illness are the leading causes of ill health and death for women in their child-bearing age, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Some of the causes of reproductive health-related problems—which can lead to maternal deaths—are AIDS, sexually transmittable infections, excessive bleeding after giving birth, bacterial and congenital infections, hypertension during pregnancy, premature birth, stillbirth, pelvic inflammatory disease, cervical cancer and complications arising from abortions.

To reduce maternal and infant mortality rates, the UN Population Fund suggests that all women should have access to contraception methods to avoid unwanted pregnancies and decrease pregnancy-related deaths and illnesses.

Families that seriously believe in Catholic doctrine, can practice family-planning and birth control without pills and devices. They can use the Church-approved Billings method or Rhythm method—or be more disciplined and practice continence.

All pregnant women should have access to skilled care at the time of birth, the UN Population Fund also said, and all those with complications should have timely access to quality emergency obstetric care.

The economic status of each childbearing mother also plays a major role in surviving complications that may arise from pregnancy. There are more maternal and fetal deaths among the poor.

A rich woman has more chances of surviving the difficulties of pregnancy and childbirth, because she can afford to have access to proper medical attention before, during and after pregnancy.

Most poor women receive scant, if any, health care during pregnancy. Even public health centers are not easily accessible to them. Or if these are, public health centers are ill-equipped both in staff members and facilities to attend to women’s needs.

Debate in Philippines

A study done by Unicef Philippines in 2004 shows that 30 percent of pregnant women barely had four pre-natal checkups.

In 2001, the United Nations called for the reduction of maternal deaths during pregnancy by 75 percent and to provide all women with universal access to reproductive health by 2015.

Halfway to 2015, maternal mortality rates have gone down by half in China, Sri Lanka, Cuba, Egypt, Jamaica, Malaysia and Thailand—all in a span of 10 years.

For the Philippines, the debate is more than the ethical and moral issues that surround reproductive health. It is ultimately a physical health issue that affects the life and safety of mother and child.

Manila Times

Today, reproductive health remains a loosely used term that most people usually associate with childbirth, but they know little else about it.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines reproductive health as “a state of physical, mental and social well-being in all matters relating to the reproductive system at all stages of life.”

It also refers to the right of both men and women to be informed about family planning and to have access to health care services that enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth.

Reproductive health, according to the Institute for Reproductive Health Philippines (IRHphi), focuses on maternal, infant and child health and nutrition including breastfeeding.

It is not just family planning and information services, but also adolescent and youth health. The term means the prevention of abortion and the management of post-abortion complications.

It also encompasses prevention of reproductive tract infections, AIDS and other sexually transmittable infections; elimination of violence against women; education and counseling on sexuality and sexual health; and the treatment of breast and reproductive tract cancers and other gynecological conditions.

And it also means male involvement and participation in reproductive health promotion, as well as the prevention and treatment of infertility, according to the institute.

– Ping Bauzon

Sammy Martin, Reporter
Manila Times

THE controversial population control legislation called the “RH Bill” is slowly turning into a religious war of sorts.

The Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development Bill is now crawling to reach plenary sessions, with supporters hoping it passes on second reading.

That may be wishful thinking. The bill, now under House Committee Report 1156, is the subject of heavy debates between so-called moralists and liberated legislators and their supporters on the sidelines.

At least six prominent lawmakers have crossed party lines to bravely sponsor the bill, claiming they are not cowed by threats from some Catholic leaders that if the legislators continue pushing the bill, they are digging a big hole for their political careers.

The lawmakers are Representatives Edcel Lagman of Albay, Jannette Garin of Iloilo, Narciso Santiago 3rd of the Alliance for Rural Concern party-list, Mark Leandro Mendoza of Batangas, Ana Theresia Hontiveros-Baraquel of Akbayan party-list and Eleandro Madrona of Romblon.

Their intentions are immediately clear in Section 2 of their committee report under the Declaration of Policy: “The State upholds and promotes responsible parenthood, informed choice, birth spacing and respect for life in conformity with internationally recognized human rights standards.”

“The state shall uphold the rights of the people, particularly women and their organizations, to effective and reasonable participation in the formation and implementation of the declared policy.”

“The policy is anchored on the rationale that sustainable human development is better assured with a manageable population of healthy, educated and productive citizens.”

“The State likewise guarantees universal access to medically safe, legal, affordable and quality reproductive health care services, methods, devices, supplies and relevant information thereon even as it prioritizes the needs of women and children, among other underprivileged sectors.”

Principles

The legislators have identified the guiding principles on how these would be implemented if the bill becomes a law:

• In the promotion of Reproductive Health, there should be no bias for either modern or natural methods of family planning.
• Reproductive health goes beyond a demographic target because it is principally about health and rights.
• Gender equality and women empowerment are the central elements of reproductive health and population development.
• Since manpower is the principal asset of every country, effective reproductive health care services must be given primacy to ensure the birth and care of healthy children and to promote responsible parenting.
• The limited resources of the country cannot service a burgeoning multitude that makes the allocations grossly inadequate and effectively meaningless.
• Freedom of informed choice, which is central to the exercise of any right, must be fully guaranteed by the State like the right itself.
• While the number and spacing of children are left to the sound judgment of parents and couples based on their personal conviction and religious beliefs, such concerned parents and couples, including unmarried individuals, should be afforded free and full access to relevant, adequate and correct information on reproductive health and human sexuality and should be guided by qualified state workers and professional private practitioners.
• Reproductive health, including the promotion of breastfeeding, must be the joint concern of the national government and local governments.
• Protection and promotion of gender equality, women empowerment and human rights, including reproductive health rights, are imperative.
• Development is a multi-faceted process that calls for the coordination and integration of policies, plans, programs and projects that seek to uplift the quality of the life of the people, more particularly the poor, the needy and the marginalized.
• Active participation by and thorough consultation should be conducted with concerned non-government organizations. The participation of people’s organizations and communities are imperative to ensure that basic policies, plans, programs and projects address the priority needs of stakeholders.
• Respect for, protection and fulfillment of reproductive health rights seek to promote not only the rights and welfare of adult individuals and couples but those of adolescents’ and children’s as well.
• While nothing in the bill changes the law on abortion, as abortion remains a crime and is punishable, the government shall ensure that women seeking care for post-abortion complications shall be treated and counseled in a humane, nonjudgmental and compassionate manner.

Support

Despite strong opposition from critics, support for the RH Bill is gaining ground.

“The RH bill will save thousands of lives and widen the choices for women and couples in spacing their children,” says Arsenio Yulo Jr., president of the Rafael M. Salas Foundation.

“A nationwide program that seriously promotes modern and natural family planning methods will definitely save thousands of lives and will widen the choices for men and couples in spacing their children,” he adds. “It deserves to be supported by Congress.”

Similarly, business leaders belonging to the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) have signified its support for the passage of the bill.

“We laud our legislators, who, in spite of the Catholic Church hierarchy’s blackmailing tactics, are standing firm in championing the people’s demand for a comprehensive national population policy,” says ECOP Chairman Miguel Varela.

“We appeal to the Catholic Church hierarchy to listen to what the people are saying,” he points out, adding that surveys “indicate that 94 percent of married couples want to space pregnancy and 97 percent want the government to pass legislation and allocate funds for population and family planning programs.”

“It is a noble move to save the lives of our people and save our nation from the chronic problems brought about by increasing population,” says Jude Baggo, secretary-general of the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance.

Legislators should not be cowed by the few people, organizations and institutions who advance their self-interests and irrational reasoning, he says. “We believe supporters of the bill are on the right track,” he adds.

“Critics of the bill must now heed the people’s clamor,” says Ramon San Pascual, executive director of the Philippine Legislators Committee on Population and Development Foundation. “They should allow the legislative process to take its course and must not resort to lies, threats and misinformation.”

Rep. Edcel Lagman, the principal author of the bill, has said in various occasions:

“The reproductive health [RH] bill promotes information on and access to both natural and modern family planning methods, which are medically safe and legally permissible. It assures an enabling environment where women and couples have the freedom of informed choice on the mode of family planning they want to adopt based on their needs, personal convictions and religious beliefs.

“The bill does not have any bias for or against either natural or modern family planning. Both modes are contraceptive methods. Their common purpose is to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

“Under this bill, contraceptives and other Reproductive health products shall be considered essential medicines and supplies and shall form part of the National Drug Formulary considering that family planning reduces the incidence of maternal and infant mortality.

“Reproductive health in an age-appropriate manner shall be taught by adequately trained teachers from Grade 5 to fourth-year high school. As proposed in the bill, core subjects include responsible parenthood, natural and modern family planning, proscription and hazards of abortion, reproductive health and sexual rights, abstinence before marriage, and responsible sexuality.

“No marriage license shall be issued by the Local Civil Registrar unless the applicants present a Certificate of Compliance issued for free by the local Family Planning Office. The document should certify that they had duly received adequate instructions and information on family planning, responsible parenthood, breastfeeding and infant nutrition.

“The State shall encourage two children as the ideal family size. This is neither mandatory nor compulsory and no punitive action may be imposed on couples having more than two children.

“Employers shall respect the reproductive health rights of all their workers.

Congressman Lagman bewails the “continuing campaign to discredit the reproductive health bill through misinformation.”

He claims that his bill is “not anti-life” and is in fact “pro-quality life.”

“It will ensure that children will be blessings for their parents since their births are planned and wanted. It will empower couples with the information and opportunity to plan and space their children. This will not only strengthen the family as a unit but also optimize care for children who will have more opportunities to be educated, healthy and productive,” he said.

He emphatically denies that the bill will legalize abortion. “It expressly provides that abortion remains a crime and that prevention of abortion is essential to fully implement the Reproductive Health Care Program.”

He stresses that while management of post-abortion complications is provided in the bill, the aim is not “to condone abortion but to promote the humane treatment of women in life-threatening situations.”

Francisco S. Tatad
Manila Times

House Bill No. 5043 is titled “An Act Providing For National Policy On Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development and For Other Purposes.” Until it reached the floor for debate, I had thought it sufficient to dwell simply on the general principles of legislation and the basic provisions of the Constitution on human life, family and marriage to show that the bill has no place in our law.

The first point I tried to make is that there are certain activities of man as man, which are not subject to state regulation of any sort. These involve fundamental human rights that precede and transcend the State, such as the right to breathe, the right to think, the right to feel, the right to love, the right to hope, the right to believe.

The State has no business instructing the citizen, by law, how to breathe, how to think, how to feel, how to love, how to hope, how to believe. Under our Constitution, it may not even instruct congressmen how to interpellate, journalists how to write, broadcasters how to read the news.

Anyone who understands what has been said so far should have no difficulty understanding that the State has no business instructing married couples that they should first contracept or get themselves sterilized before they could engage in sexual intercourse.

The bill’s proponents seem completely unable or unwilling to grasp this rather plain and simple point. They seem to believe that they can legislate anything they want to legislate simply because they sit in Congress. This is a serious moral and intellectual disorder which finds support only in totalitarian states where the legislator need not sit in Congress. We are not yet a totalitarian state.

The second point I tried to make is that no proposed statute can possibly prosper which seeks to amend, or go around or against the Constitution outside of the constitutional amendatory process. And HB 5043 more than amply does this.

Article II, Section 12 of the Constitution is, or ought to be, a sufficient bar to HB 5043. “The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception. The natural and primary right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development of moral character shall receive the support of the Government.”

The provision, though not self-enforcing, needs no interpretation. Family life is sacred; it possesses a quality that belongs primarily to God. The family is the starting point of society and should be left alone to do its work as a family; the State’s duty is to protect it against all threats, including those coming from the State itself. The moral character of the youth is not likely to be developed by concentrating their minds on hedonistic sex.

By this provision, the Constitution bans abortion, but not contraception or sterilization. But can the State be an honest protector of the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from the moment of conception if its first business is to prevent women from conceiving? Of course not. So the necessary implication of Sec. 12, Article II is a ban on state-sponsored or state-mediated contraception and sterilization, even though there is no such ban on private parties.

Even without the above provision, the whole Article XV on “The Family” should suffice. This recognizes marriage as “an inviolable social institution,” “the foundation of the family,” which shall be “protected by the State.” It further recognizes the Filipino family as the “foundation of the nation” and obliges the State to “strengthen its solidarity and actively promote its total development.” It further obliges the State to defend “the right of spouses to found a family according to their religious convictions and the demands of responsible parenthood.”

Unless the Constitution has become a mere scrap of paper, these provisions should have barred the House of Representatives from approving HB 5043 at committee level. Even if all the economic justifications, which had been thoroughly discredited, had more teeth, the moral and constitutional bar, which the bill has failed to hurdle, should have prompted the committees to send it to the archives.

But there was a brazen attempt to steamroll the bill. Four reproductive health bills had been referred jointly to the House committees on Health and on Population and Family Relations. On April 29, 2008, the committees heard three of the four bills. They set a second hearing for May 21, 2008. But when the committees met on that date, the presiding officer announced that they would now deliberate on “the substitute bill” to the four bills. And on one member’s motion, the committees approved “the substitute bill.” No further hearing.

This was in violation of the constitutional provision, and a rule of the House, which mandate adequate consultations with families or family associations. The statement that the same bill had been heard in previous congresses, even if true, is irrelevant and immaterial, since all bills that fail to be acted upon by a particular congress die at the end of that congress. If any bill be refiled in a new congress, it should go through the legislative mill as though it was being filed for the first time.

Nowhere in the records does it appear that the joint committees ever instructed any officer or group of officers to consolidate the bills into one. The chair’s statement and the member’s motion spoke of “the substitute bill” as already in being, without need of a motion that it first be created.

Normally, bills are consolidated by a technical working group (TWG) created by the committee or joint committees upon a member’s motion to consolidate. There was no such motion, and no TWG was ever created. Where then did the substitute bill emanate?

Upon interpellation, the sponsor, who surprisingly is not the committee chair endorsing the bill, but rather the principal author himself, was reported to have said that the authors of the four component bills did it.

If true, it was highly irregular. Why? Because at that stage the bills were already under the joint committees’ jurisdiction and control, and nothing on record shows they had asked the authors to consolidate.

If false, which seems more likely, a serious ethical question arises, which completely vitiates the integrity of the proceedings, and which must be resolved by the House Ethics committee, before which it should now be raised.

This is not a trifling technicality. There is loud talk in the House that the substitute bill, as well as the original component bills, was produced by a foreign-funded nongovernment entity, called the Philippine Legislators Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD). PLCPD falls under the classification of “foreign agent,” according to the Foreign Agents Act of 1979, which I had the honor of initiating at the interim Batasang Pambansa.

The fact that all the reproductive health bills in the House and the Senate tend to read and sound alike, both in style and in content, and that PLCPD had been running ads urging passage of the bill, while David and Lucile Packard Foundation, one of its foreign funders, had criticized the government for the slowdown in its purchase of contraceptives, seem to provide more than ample basis for the loud talk in the House.

What foreign interests are behind the wild and moneyed push for this bill? Why are so many foreign-funded NGOs, featuring brand and customary “nationalists,” trying to ride roughshod over the Constitution and Catholic objections to it on moral and constitutional grounds?

The answer may be downloaded on the Internet. Population control has a long history. It began in antiquity, but it became an invasive global political force in 1974 after Henry Kissinger came up with National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM) 200, titled “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interests.”

This secret document created the template for the global population action plan that called for a two-child family worldwide by the year 2000. Since then the greying and dying of the population of the West has exposed the folly of this plan. But some people still want to dance the dance. Just who are making them dance?

Regardless of the motives and agendas imbedded in HB 5043, as a piece of legislation, it is shot through with holes. It cannot survive an honest House. As stated in the beginning, the bill is titled, “An Act Providing For A National Policy On Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development, And For Other Purposes.”

The Constitution provides that “every bill passed by the Congress shall embrace only one subject which shall be expressed in the title thereof.” The bill’s failure to reflect its penal nature in its title is a constitutional violation; the fact that it contains three separate subjects—reproductive health, responsible parenthood, and population development—which it tries, unsuccessfully, to link together, is another.

But the bill’s most obvious and ultimately insurmountable defect is that it seeks to “provide” a national policy where the Constitution already provides one. You read this in Article II, “Declaration of Principles and State Policies,” eloquently spread out from Section 9 to Sec. 18 or further.

Congress can only implement the policy laid out in the Constitution. It cannot hope to replace or revise it. Of course, one may now try to amend the title to say that the bill is “implementing” the constitutional policy rather than trying to provide a new one. That, however, cannot stand. The contents of HB 5043 do not at all reflect the substance of the constitutional policy; they rather seek to deny, assault and pervert the same.

One final point. Assume (arguendo) that the constitutional policy did not at all exist, the government’s contraceptives and sterilization program—illegal as it is—already exists. You only need to play back then Health Secretary Johnny Flavier’s proud boast before his NGO crowd at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo to confirm it. The fat outlays inserted in the present and next year’s budgets for reproductive health further confirm it.

After all is said and done, is HB 5043 not, in fact, an attempt to legalize an illegal program that has been there for years?

Send reactions to http://franciscotatad.blogspot.com

Rene Q. Bas, Editor in Chief
Manila Times

Many experts say the debate is mainly between the Catholic objection to artificial contraception and the urgent need to arrest Philippine population growth through an effective, aggressive birth control policy

Others see the debate between Rep. Edcel Lagman, together with co-authors, and opponents of the bill as one pitting Faith (and adherence to the doctrine of the Catholic Church) versus giving every woman an Informed Choice about whether to be pregnant or not. If not, then the choice is of what method of contraception to use and being informed about what each of these methods entails. (See related story “Facts about birth control” by Rony Diaz.)

Since abortion is illegal—criminal—in the Philippines, there is theoretically no choice between aborting and not aborting a baby in the womb. In reality, however, the number of illegal abortions must be rather large. Filipinos take pride in the Philippines being a country whose population is 85 to 90 percent Catholic, yet the number of dead fetuses found in garbage cans, public and mall toilets is appalling.

Faith vs. Pragmatism

Some see the debate between those who are for HB 5403 and those who are against as one on the issue of Faith versus Pragmatism.

The article of Faith is that God gives a soul to the human being at the moment of conception—that this moment is when the woman’s egg is fertilized by the man’s sperm. It does not matter to the believer if the tiny fetus cannot survive by itself. It is a human being because it has a soul from God Himself.

This being the case, then all the utilitarian messages—about the country getting better chances of vanquishing mass poverty or being doomed to poverty forever by its large population—mean nothing to the believer. These messages don’t even mean anything to the wife of the husband who is always drunk and requires her as a sex object every night.

Chemical contraceptives and IUDs, too, are anathema. They prevent the fertilized egg from being implanted in the womb. Not having found his or her connection to the uterine wall, the tiny fetus—already a baby in the mind of the faithful and of the Church—will die in a “miscarriage” which is in reality an abortion because pills or devices were used to prevent that human being from properly being linked to his or her mother.

Pragmatists are frustrated because they cannot win assent from the believer to allow the abortion of embryos resulting from rape and incest. They must understand that the believer—and the priests and bishops—can never agree because that offspring of a criminal sexual act is a human being, a being with a God-given soul. Why should the baby be blamed for the evil act of the incestuous relative or the rapist?

How then to deal with the poor mother carrying an unwanted child? How about her right to rid herself of an “intruder”?

Only in societies where people have ceased believing that the smallest fetus is already a human being are laws passed allowing her to dispose of the being she carries in her womb because it is “a foreign object.” As long as the fetus is a human being, it cannot be killed, which is what abortion is. It cannot be prevented from growing in the womb.

The Catholic Church, and those who respect its teachings, believe as the Catechism says: “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.”

This belief is validated by the words in the Old Testament (Jeremiah 1:5) “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”

And in the Book of Job (10:8-12): “Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese, clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit.” And Psalm 139:15: “My frame was not hidden from You, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.”

Catholics against HB 5403 also talk about its illegality, the unsoundness of socioeconomic plans to make poor people prosperous by having less of them and other purely materialistic wisdom, the danger of the Philippines being afflicted by the West and Japan and Korea and Singapore’s “empty cradle” situation.

But the most important issue of all is the belief (which others may deem either loathsome or laughable) that fetuses are human beings. That is why they will not allow the bill to pass without a fight.

from The Manila Times

THE principal author of controversial Reproductive Health Bill asked his colleagues Friday that they must concentrate on the main issue at hand, and not be cowed by the threat of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines that lawmakers who will support the bill may no longer be allowed to receive communion.

Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay said in an interview that his colleagues must stand on what they think is the best move to curb the fast growing population of the country, which is now pegged at 88.4 million based on the latest data of the National Statistics Office.

“We know for a fact that there is no such thing as [a] Catholic vote,” said Lagman, who looked irritated upon learning of the new pressure being applied by the bishops on House members who are planning to support the controversial bill.

He said the issue at hand is non-religious in nature and the Catholic bishops must open their eyes to the reality that the Filipino population is fast multiplying, because mothers and would-be mothers are never given the chance to choose how they can plan their family.

Lagman said his controversial measure already passed the House Committees on Health, Population and Family Relations and Appropriations.

He also hit the bill’s critics for their “long-winding interpellations, baseless procedural objection on the committees’ approval of the bill and irrelevant attacks on the funding and motives of NGO [non-government organization] advocates.”

Debates on the bill was temporarily suspended to give way to the discussions of the proposed P1.41-trillion national budget for 2009.

The controversial measure proposes mandatory age-appropriate reproductive health education starting from grade 5 and the purchase of contraceptives by state hospitals, among others.

Rep. Eduardo Zialcita of Paraña­que City argued the “pro-life” caucus had mustered a bigger number of lawmakers opposed to the Reproductive Health Bill.

He claimed the number of lawmakers who support shelving the controversial measure has increased to 110 from 75 two weeks ago.

“I don’t really know where he’s [Lagman is] getting his numbers,” Zialcita said.

– Sammy Martin

Michelle Remo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines—A bill seeking to impose population control in the country would lead to a waste of valuable resources that would be better ploughed into education and infrastructure, a conservative think-tank said Thursday.

The proposed law, the Reproductive Health bill, or House bill No. 5043, comes at a time when countries that adopted similar policies in the 1970s were reversing them as they started to worry about supporting their ageing populations, said economists at the University of Asia and the Pacific, a Catholic school in Pasig City founded by Opus Dei members.

The school’s chief economist Bernardo Villegas said controlling the population would be “demographic suicide,” and would put the blame for widespread poverty in the country with “people who are not yet even born.”

“I agree that mass poverty is the biggest scandal in the Philippines. [But] there is no strong empirical evidence in my field, which is economic science, that shows population growth is responsible for mass poverty,” Villegas told a press briefing Thursday.

Villegas said that one of the biggest fallacies ever told was that the bigger the family, the poorer it was.

“The ultimate resource of the planet is the human being. Population growth can actually be a tool for eradicating poverty,” Villegas said.

Potential veto

The bill is about 12 votes shy of passing in the House of Representatives, according to its principal author, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman.

However, it lacks the support of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a devout Roman Catholic who could theoretically veto it even if passed by the House and the Senate. Lagman said a dozen previous population bills over the past generation had been defeated.

The dominant Catholic Church has threatened to excommunicate legislators who vote for the bill.

Under the proposed law, the state would have to fund a population program, teach it at schools and to couples intending to marry, and have government hospitals offer contraceptives, vasectomies and tubal ligations, an operation that blocks the fallopian tubes.

Singapore as example

It would require the state to “encourage two children as the ideal family size.”

The Philippines has one of the highest birth rates in Asia, with the population growing at around two percent annually and expected to top 100 million in five years.

Villegas noted that government data showed that population density did not have a direct relation to poverty.

He said that Singapore had 7,223 persons for every square kilometer, while the Philippines had only 255. Although population density in Singapore was much higher, it’s per capita gross national income was way better at $21,230 compared with the Philippines’ $1,081.

Comparing data on regions within the country, Villegas said the National Capital Region had 15,617 people for every square kilometer, much higher than that of any other region in the country. The Eastern Visayas Region, for instance, only had 173 people per square kilometer.

But despite that, the NCR was still identified as the richest region in the Philippines, with a real per capita income of P32,219. Per capita in Eastern Visayas was recorded only at P6,708.

With a report from Agence France-Presse

Boo Chanco
Philippine Star

There are some 400,000 cases of abortion in the Philippines annually. The shocking statistics underline a serious health problem for women because according to Department of Health data, abortion and its complications have consistently been the third leading cause of hospital discharges (after normal delivery and pneumonia) in DOH-retained hospitals. These Philippine data are higher than in other Asian countries like non Christian Japan, Bangladesh and India.

Abortion is illegal, as it should be, but a fact of Philippine life. People can pretend it isn’t there, but it won’t go away. It is condemned by the Church and is unacceptable to the Philippine Population Management Program. But it is being resorted to, clandestinely, with life threatening health hazards to women.

And who are the women who resort to abortion? A UP Population Institute study found that most of the women who have had an abortion are not your run-of-the-mill women with questionable morals and sexual habits. Most were married or living in, presumably in monogamous relationships, often in their mid-20s or older, with at least one child. A larger study — 3,703 women admitted in four government hospitals in 1993 — has come up with a similar profile. Most of the women respondents were also over 20, Catholic, and educated but unemployed and who come from large households.

Among married women, the main reasons for undergoing an abortion were (1) economic in nature, (2) too many pregnancies, and (3) a large family size. The reasons most often cited by unmarried women were (1) unpreparedness, (2) work demands, and (3) economic plight.

“Economic difficulty is the common reason for both the married and the unmarried, implying that a good majority belongs to the poor,” according to a report on the State of the Philippine Population Report (SPPR), published by the Commission on Population with assistance from the United Nations on Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA).

“The common denominator is a pregnancy that is ill timed, unplanned, and unintended,” the SPPR reports. As one researcher puts it, “As long as wealth and resources are not evenly distributed in the country, the problem of poverty will continue to stalk all of us; and abortion will remain a symptom of a social cancer that we cannot solve by the mechanical application of the law.”

And this is why a group of 27 UP Economics professors is supporting the Reproductive Health bill now being debated in Congress. “Caught between a hard Church and a soft State are the overwhelming majority of Filipinos who affirm the importance of helping women and couples control the size of their families and the need for government to give budgetary support for modern FP methods,” the UP economists emphasized.

Perhaps in response to claims that the Philippines is rich and can support a larger population, the group of UP economists cite data from countries across Asia showing that the weaker the state’s ability is to tax, mobilize resources, and spend on the right priorities, the greater the negative impact is of a rapidly growing population to economic development. That, unfortunately, describes the Philippines perfectly… a soft state that cannot afford to support its fast growing population.

The UP economists also looked at the problem at the micro level of families. Household survey data over time shows that poor families are heavily burdened when they end up with more children than they desire. Data on married women shows that the poor prefer smaller families but are unable to achieve their preference. Among the poorest women who want to avoid pregnancy, at least 41 percent do not use any contraceptive because they lack information.

Data point to several health implications of mistimed and unplanned pregnancies, the UP economists point out. These include maternal and infant mortality. Health risks are higher for adolescent mothers who are more likely to have complications during labor. Social costs of mistimed and unplanned pregnancies include a greater burden on public education, health, and other services.

Unfortunately, the UP economists lamented, serious discussion has been hampered by the lack of reliable information and the proclivity of some parties in the debate to use epithets that label the bill as “pro-abortion”, “anti-life”, and “immoral”. Nothing could be further from the truth, the UP economists say.

“We say—based on serious evidence—that the RH (Reproductive Health) Bill is pro-poor and authentically pro-life and pro-family,” asserted professors from the UP School of Economics in a position paper. The main thrust of the bill – “enabling couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information and means to carry out their decisions” – is something we strongly and unequivocally support, the economists said.

It is the position of the UP economists that “an unambiguous and consistent national population policy” is an integral component of a development and poverty reduction strategy and is long overdue in the Philippines.

They cite the need for information on family planning beyond “natural” family planning (NFP) because data shows that NFP has a failure rate of 24 percent—meaning that if 100 women adopt it, 24 of them would typically become pregnant in a year, mostly because they are unlikely to perfectly comply with the methods.

The professors accused President Arroyo of misleading the public during her State of the Nation Address when she claimed her policy of NFP combined with female education reduced population growth during her administration. The professors say the World Health Organization and the Population Council have categorically disowned President Arroyo’s claim citing them as source of information that NFP is effective compared to artificial contraceptives and that the latter contributed merely two percent to the decline of birth rates.

They say that the use rate of “modern-NFP” among married women of reproductive age actually dropped from 0.5 percent to 0.3 percent from 2001 to 2006. During the same period, modern “artificial” contraceptives rose from 33 percent to 36 percent. “Espousing ‘natural family planning only’ … reflects a lack of seriousness in pursuing long-term economic development and poverty reduction,” the professors say.

They also debunked claims that the RH Bill is pro-abortion and anti-life. “In the first place, there is an obvious definitional and scientific difference between contraception… and abortion…” The 27 say the bill’s main thrust is to promote full information on, and provide access to and a choice from among the whole range of traditional, modern, and NFP methods for contraception and not abortion. “The bill is, in fact, unequivocally and explicitly against abortion,” they add. Abortion will remain penalized.

As to the claim that the RH bill will lead to promiscuity, the break-up of families, a decline in moral values, and hedonism constitutes “pure ideological conjecture—an assertion sans logic and empirical basis,” according to the 27. Besides, why should the Church pass on to the State the task of making up for the failure of its bishops and priests to properly teach and make their church members follow the Church’s moral code?

In any case, new data now provide comfort to members of Congress that it is no longer political suicide to oppose the Catholic Church on this issue. A Pulse Asia survey has revealed that at least 85 per cent of 83 million Filipinos want government to provide them with means to plan their families, including a whopping 90 per cent of all Roman Catholics surveyed. Failure to heed this reality makes our legislators guilty of ignoring the wishes of an overwhelming majority of taxpayers/citizens in favor of the dictates of what is apparently a small but noisy elite in the Catholic Church itself.

As for the shocking problem of abortion earlier cited, what seems certain, going by the example in other countries, is that wider and more effective use of legal and medically approved contraceptive methods lessens the incidence of abortion.

In the end, that’s being more pro-life in deed and not just in theory.
Pre-vacation ritual

A man pulls up at the medical clinic, leaving his wife and kids in the car, and races inside.

“We’re leaving on vacation, and my wife says I need to be vasectomised immediately!”

The doctor is surprised, but makes the guy happy. Snip, snip, and it’s done.

So the guy shuffles back to the car and gingerly lowers himself back into the driver’s seat.
“So, are you vaccinated, then?” asks his wife.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is bchanco@gmail.com