Anti-AIDS advocates back RH bill

MANILA, Philippines – A group fighting Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) endorsed yesterday the passage of the controversial Reproductive Health Bill (RHB), saying it can help prevent AIDS.

Marlon Lacsamana, of Girls, Women and HIV & AIDS Network (GWHAN), said HIV cases continue to increase in the Philippines, infecting 57 patients in September, which is almost threefold of the monthly HIV cases registered.

“This alarming statistic supports the call for the immediate passage of the Reproductive Health Bill now being deliberated in the House of Representatives,” Lacsamana claimed.

He added there is also “widespread disinformation and misinformation demonizing condom use” and this “must be disproved with accurate data.”

Speaker Prospero Nograles announced during the resumption of the 14th Congress last Monday that the RHB is among the measures placed on top of the congressmen’s agenda.

The bill promotes the use of contraceptives like condoms to limit the size of families, but the Catholic Church and its supporters have argued that it would only promote promiscuity.

But for those campaigning against HIV/AIDS, condoms are seen as a means to prevent the spread of this disease.

The bill also includes HIV prevention care and support as one of its key elements, in accordance with international documents signed by the Philippines like the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and 1994 United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, among others.

GWHAN is a multi-sectoral body composed of 21 government and non-government organizations.

Meanwhile, Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral and UN resident coordinator Suneeta Mukherjee called on the Philippine government to take steps to control the country’s population growth, despite fierce opposition from the Catholic Church.

Cabral called for the passage of the much-delayed Reproductive Health Care Act and urged President Arroyo to support the bill, despite her previous opposition to family planning.

“We cannot continue to be in a culture of denial... stubbornly clinging to beliefs which are detrimental to our country’s progress,” Cabral told a public forum on population growth.

The Philippine population now stands at around 90 million, with an annual growth rate of 2.04 percent, one of the highest in Asia and above the government’s target of 1.9 percent, she warned. – With AFP

Mukherjee told the same forum that it was mainly the poor that were bearing the brunt of uncontrolled population growth.

“Population growth impacts everything,” Mukherjee warned, saying food and energy supplies, housing and environment would all be affected by an uncontrolled rise in population.