Sanctity of family life

Even a high school dropout cannot be mistaken about Section 3(1) Article XV of the Constitution when it provides that: "The State shall defend the right of the spouses to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions and the demands of responsible parenthood." I am sure Congressmen Edcel Lagman and Ace Barbers know that under this Constitutional mandate, determining the size of the family is the inherent right and the exclusive prerogative of married Filipino couples which the State must defend, not violate or interfere with. Limiting the number of children per family to just two or providing for a five-year moratorium on births in a family clearly runs counter to this fundamental decree. The violation is not erased by converting the proposals into mere legislative suggestions that dangle lots of juicy incentives. Indeed these "enlightened" pieces of legislation, being mere suggestions as the proponents picture them to be, are not legislations at all because they lack the most essential ingredient of a law which is its enforceability by the sovereign political authority. How can mere suggestions be enforced by the government? These proposed legislations, therefore, patently reveal either the utter ignorance of the proponents on the true nature of their functions as legislators or their amazing cleverness in sugar-coating their bills so that the Constitutional mandate is not transgressed.

The State must defend this right of the spouses to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions because the State itself acknowledges that the family is the most basic unit of society, that the family is not its creation but precedes its own existence. It is really God’s own creation. Hence among the declared State policies found in our Constitution are: that it "recognizes the sanctity of family life" and that it "shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution" (Section 12, Article II). As an autonomous social institution, the family is independent from and not under the control of the State. So the State cannot use the family as its tool or instrument in the implementation of its government program like population management. That’s clear enough even to non-lawyers.

By suggesting or proposing that the government conducts a massive and aggressive information campaign on couples to curb population growth, these population experts are asking the government to contravene this fundamental tenet since this is nothing but exploiting and manipulating families as instruments of its population policy. It is a clear incursion into, and infringement of the family’s autonomy and independence which is protected by the Constitution. Such infringement still holds even if the aggressive government campaign covers all legal means of family planning under the excuse of giving the couples a free choice between natural and artificial birth control methods. The sanctity of family life that the Constitution recognizes pertains more to the moral or spiritual rather than the legal aspect. This is quite obvious in the very wordings of Section 3(1) Article XV which speak of "religious convictions" of couple in the exercise of their inherent right to raise their families. Contraception or the use of chemical (pills), mechanical (condoms) and surgical (vasectomy, tubal ligation) birth control methods are not in accordance with the religious convictions of more than 80 percent of the Filipino couples. It is a form of atheism as it constitutes a rejection of the natural and God-made functioning of the reproductive system. Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae (E.V.# 13) condemns the use of artificial birth control and therefore of the Pro-Choice mentality. The couples’ right to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions will be placed in serious jeopardy if the government aggressively conducts information campaign advocating artificial birth control methods to them.

Perhaps our birth control proponents should consider the very stark and glaring reality that they may have not even been born to make their controversial proposals had their parents practiced birth control which they are now staunchly advocating.

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