CBCP to continue opposing RH bill

MANILA, Philippines - Catholic bishops yesterday vowed to continue opposing the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, rejecting claims that it would help address injustice in the country.

“I cannot see why I would support the RH bill because the good provisions for the sake the mothers and children are already stated in the mandates of government agencies. The pro-poor provisions are also already with the agencies. There is no need for a new law. What we need is sincere and committed implementation of the already existing laws,” Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) secretary general Monsignor Juanito Figura said yesterday.

Figura was reacting to Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s appeal to Catholic Church leaders to take a clear stand against social injustice by supporting the passage of the RH bill.

Santiago, principal author of the RH bill under Senate Bill 2865, had invoked liberation theology, noting that the first step to abolish injustice is to recognize that “the Church is tied to the unjust system that oppresses the very poor.”

She said the message of Jesus Christ is “above all a call to struggle against the social forces of oppression.”

While admitting that liberation theology is good, Figura, however, said the “social forces of oppression” must first be identified and taken in the Philippine context.

These “forces,” he said, could refer to the prevailing widespread cases of graft and corruption, unequal distribution of land, widening gap between the rich and the poor, worsening criminality, severe incidents of hunger, and human trafficking.

Figura said he could not reconcile how the RH bill would be able to address these social forces of oppression. “I could not see the logic. I am sorry to say that.”

“Is RH bill a valid answer? Is it an answer to give solutions as early as possible or is RH bill just a little part, if that is what it is, a little part of a bigger solution such as a sincere crusade against graft and corruption, the sincere commitment to distribute the land to whom they should belong, and sincere decision to stop human trafficking,” he added.

Anti-RH bill groups step up campaign

Various organizations have stepped up their opposition to the passage of the RH bill.

Former senator Francisco Tatad, who now represents the International Right to Life Federation and the World Youth Alliance, said the committee report of the RH bill did not take into consideration the questions on constitutionality raised by their group and other groups opposing the bill.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, chairman of the Senate committee on rules, Tatad criticized what he called the apparent biases of the authors of the committee report and urged the rules committee to “exercise its jurisdiction over this matter and do whatever it deems necessary and proper in the premises.”

“What the committee report contains is a totally arbitrary recommendation based on the biases of those who wrote the report rather than on the facts and issues brought before the committee hearings,” Tatad said.

“My constitutional objection was never refuted but the committee report appears as though that constitutional objection was never made,” he added.

Tatad noted that under the Constitution, the state cannot be a source of a program of contraception because it has a duty to protect the life of the unborn from conception.

“It violates the principle of non-contradiction. The protector of conception cannot simultaneously be the preventer of conception. It can be one or the other but not at the same time,” he said.

Tatad also cited Article 15, Section 3 of the Constitution, which provides that “the State shall defend the right of spouses to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions and the demands of responsible parenthood.”

“The bill violates the provision by requiring everyone to practice birth control even though it is supposed to give the individual the choice of what methods to use,” Tatad said.

Tatad recently delivered a speech at the Moscow Demographic Summit, wherein he criticized the proponents of the RH bill for marketing it as a necessary measure to guarantee women’s right to family planning.

He said that it was a fraudulent claim because there is no law in the Philippines that prohibits family planning, “everyone is free to contracept and get sterilized, and the national contraceptive prevalence rate now stands at 51 percent.”

In the declaration issued after the Moscow Demographic Summit, the participants called for an end to interference with the private life of the family under the pretext of so-called family planning, protection of the rights of the child and gender equality.

“We consider it inadmissible to continue the policy of birth control, regarding this policy as one of the greatest threats to the survival of humankind and as a means of incursive discrimination against them family,” the declaration stated.– With Marvin Sy