Strange behavior

Something strange seems to be happening in the Senate nowadays. It is supposed to be the Upper Chamber of Congress composed of men and women with higher intellectual capacity that will put more sense and rationality into the laws produced by the legislative body. Yet they are doing something absurd and ridiculous by enacting the Sin Tax (ST) bill, but nevertheless considering the enactment of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill which are plainly contradictory and at cross-purposes with each other.

The ST bill, which was certified as urgent by Malacañang would control or check the bad habits of our countrymen, particularly smoking and drinking that seriously affect people’s health because they lead to lung and liver cancer. As enacted, this bill imposes higher taxes on alcohol and tobacco products, thus raising the prices of alcoholic drinks and cigarettes, making them almost prohibitive and even beyond the reach of smokers and drinkers, thus eventually forcing the latter to minimize or even totally quit indulging on these vices. Obviously this bill recently approved by the Senate has a very laudable purpose.

On the other hand however, this “august body” is also tackling and considering the enactment of the more controversial RH bill which will subsidize and support with public funds amounting to billions of pesos the right of women to engage in sex without getting pregnant. through the use of contraceptive pills and devices already shown to have serious and fatal effects on the life of the mother and of the unborn in the mother’s womb that may be conceived despite taking contraceptives.

The strange thing here really is that one bill (ST) would check the vices of our people while the other (RH) is aimed at promoting another vice with more dangerous consequences on the physical life and health of women and children and on our society’s morality because of the use of contraceptives.

More bizarre however is the recent rejection of Senate President Enrile’s proposed amendment defining the term “conception” or when life begins. Led by its co-sponsors, Senators Santiago, and Pia Cayetano, Senators Angara, A. Cayetano, Drilon, Escudero, Guingona, Lacson, Legarda, Marcos and Osmena, also refused the proposed amendment allegedly because the meaning of the term has not yet been settled by scientific evidence and experts. This line of reasoning is again quite strange as it is flawed.

It may be correct to say that the Constitution did not really define the meaning of the term “conception” when it mandates the State to equally protect the life of the mother and of the unborn from conception” because such definition is a “matter of science to specify” as Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ wrote in his book, The 1987 Philippine Constitution-A Primer and Reviewer, p. 20. But since the Constitution’s approval, universally accepted scientific evidence and criteria in human embryology have already established that “a new cell, the human zygote comes into existence at the moment of the sperm-egg fusion, an event that occurs in less than a second. Upon formation, the zygote immediately initiates a complex sequence of events that establish the molecular condition required for continued embryonic development. The behavior of the zygote is radically unlike that of either sperm or egg separately and is characteristic of a human organism” (When Does Human Life Begins? A Scientific Perspective, by Maureen Condic Ph.D, University of Utah School of Medicine).

Thus it is already a scientific fact that life begins at conception and conception occurs upon fertilization or the union of the sperm and the egg or ovum. Enrile is therefore correct in his proposed definition of “conception” as referring to “the successful penetration of an ovum by the spermatozoa in the fallopian tube, otherwise known as fertilization. This is when life begins in the mother’s womb. And this “conclusion is objective, consistent with factual evidence, independent of any specific ethical, moral, political or religious view of human life or of human embryo” (Idem).

Indeed, even Fr. Bernas, S.J. in one of his columns, already said that life begins at conception which is the fertilization or the union of the sperm and the egg to form a human zygote. And this is also the belief of the other members of the Constitutional Commission that drafted our Charter in 1987 when they provided in Section 12 Article II that… “the State shall equally protect the life of the mother and of unborn from conception.” This is already a non-issue and definitely the 11 Senators have no plausible ground or valid reason to reject Enrile’s proposed amendment of the RH bill.

Actually, this bizarre reaction from the 11 Senators stems from the possible implications of Enrile’s definition on the debate about abortion. The backers and proponents of the bill have repeatedly denied that contraception being promoted by the bill will result in abortion. They have to object to that definition being incorporated in the RH bill because in that case almost all of the contraceptives being promoted by the bill will have a fatal effect on the life of the unborn in the mother’s womb and thus already constitutes abortion that is illegal under the Revised Penal Code. In fact their definition of when life begins hews more closely to the definition given in US case of Roe vs. Wade where there is no abortion until the sixth month of pregnancy. By their objection, they are in effect legalizing abortion contrary to the bill’s expressed declaration that abortion is still illegal. Strange indeed, except when we consider the “strong” pressure from foreign lobbyists.

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