Don't call us extremists, anti-RH lawmakers ask

MANILA, Philippines - Please, don’t call us extremists and malevolent.

Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, one of many House members opposed to the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, addressed this appeal yesterday to Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, one of the measure’s authors.

“Congressman Lagman and those supporting the proposed RH law should not resort to name-calling. They should stick to the issues and engage us in civilized debate. Resorting to name-calling is un-parliamentary,” he said.

“Being pro-life is not extremism. On the contrary, it is those who advocate killing life at conception, which is what the RH bill is all about, who are extremists,” Rodriguez said.

He urged Lagman and other authors “to marshal their forces, if they have enough, to get the bill moving.”

“They always lack enough warm bodies in the session hall. It is they who are delaying the proceedings, not us,” he said.

“We who are opposed to the bill will always attend the session to assert our rights and to block this measure, which will promote a culture of abortion,” he added.

Lagman has denied that the proposed law would promote abortion.

Over the weekend, he labeled those opposed to the bill as extremists for opposing proposed amendments that would respond to their criticisms and address their concerns.

They would block the measure, even if only a comma remains of it, he said.

Representatives Jeanette Garin of Ilo-ilo and Kimi Cojuangco of Pangasinan, Lagman’s co-authors, accused anti-RH congressmen of abusing the rules of the House by making privilege speeches to delay the bill’s consideration.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. has promised to come up with rules that could get the proposed RH legislation moving again.

Last Aug. 6, the House overwhelmingly voted to end debates on the bill.

Meanwhile, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago came to the defense of faculty members of the Ateneo de Manila University who have been subjected to threats from the Catholic church for taking a position supporting the RH bill.

“That is an infringement of the constitutional right to academic freedom enshrined in the Constitution. You cannot dictate on a professor what to teach. This is a backward looking message. You can no longer punish Catholics for their freedom of conscience,” said Santiago who is also co-author and sponsor of the RH bill.

“The Catholic is not supposed to swallow everything that is recited by a cleric, whether he is a parish priest or a bishop. Only the Pope can dictate and that is only when he categorically claims that he is speaking ex cathedra in his role as supreme pontiff,” she added.

On the other hand, in spite of their differences over the RH bill, Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto said yesterday that he would be the first to defend Senator Pia Cayetano from allegations of plagiarism.

Sotto, just like Cayetano, was also accused of plagiarism by an American blogger and pro-RH bill advocates in his speeches against the controversial measure.

The allegation against Cayetano came after the attacks against Sotto and was contained in a blog, the contents of which were distributed to the members of the media.

Sotto was supposed to deliver a privilege speech yesterday in response to the attacks against him by American blogger Sarah Pope and the pro-RH groups but this had to be postponed in deference to the death of Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo.

He said that his response to the “hatchet job” against him would have to come next Tuesday and then the last part of his presentation against the RH bill would be on Wednesday.  – With Marvin Sy