Urging SC to act on the RH Law

Former President Fidel Ramos and former Prime Minister Cesar Virata join Senate President Franklin Drilon and House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte in calling for the Supreme Court to favor immediately the implementation of the Reproductive Health Law.

“Perhaps no other legislative measure has drawn as much comment among our people,” said Ramos. “But beyond personal, cultural and religious dictates, the evidence should speak for itself that there are 15 mothers dying every day from lack of RH care in the country and the rate of teenage pregnancies have doubled in the last 10 years.”    

Virata argued that “the law, which  has the overwhelming support of Filipinos as evidenced by survey after survey and debated upon for more than 13 years in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, must be upheld by the Supreme Court.”

The RH Law,  signed by President Aquino December 2012,  is currently under suspension following the issuance of a 120-day status quo ante order by the Supreme Court and its indefinite extension after the order lapsed July 17, 2013.

According to Virata, there were 137 who voted in favor of the RH Law against 79 members of Congress who did not.  “They represent not just the majority of the 52 million voters of the country but the majority of the Philippine population. In the Senate, the RH Law passed its third and final reading by a vote of 13 senators in favor and 8 against.    

Ramos also emphasized his trust in the independence and wisdom of the Supreme Court and firmly believes that any partisan religious incursions should be resisted and rejected by the members of the Highest Court of the land. 

Ramos and Virata are Eminent Persons of the Forum for FP and Development, that includes RH Law principal author former Rep. Edcel Lagman, National Scientist Mercedes Concepcion, business icons Oscar Lopez and Washington Sycip, and philanthropist Loida Nicolas Lewis. 

The Forum is an NGO that has worked for many years with other civil society organizations in fighting for the passage of the RH Law.  It is headed by its president, Benjamin de Leon,  a public administration and social development expert, while its vice president is UP Professor Emeritus of Economics, Dr. Ernesto Pernia.

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Because of the importance of the topic of coal energy, I am printing  the response of Heherson T. Alvarez, chair of the Climate Change Commission, to Joseph Cheng’s letter that I printed last week, as follows:

  â€œI use the term ‘subsidy’ both in its broad and narrow senses. In the latter sense, the Philippines provides subsidies to coal and fossil fuel companies  in the form of  ‘incentives’ — exemption from all taxes except income tax, and exemption from payment of tariff duties  and compensating tax on machineries, equipment, and materials. 

“This special tax treatment allows, for instance, fossil fuel companies to rapidly depreciate their assets. Also, this treatment should be unnecessary for mature industries which have proven track records of high profitability.

“The idea of fossil fuel subsidies was originally meant to benefit the poor. By giving tax breaks and incentives to energy companies, policymakers wanted to provide energy access to those who can’t afford it. Unfortunately, it hasn’t work that way since, as Cheng correctly observes, ‘we have the highest rates in Asia.’

“Worse, special tax treatments are the most pernicious and distorting of subsidies because they make coal and diesel artificially cheap.  This ‘cheapness’ does not take into account   what economists call ‘externalities’ — the costs and the destruction they impact on human health, water quality, agriculture, and biodiversity. Who pays for these costs?   Not the coal power companies, taxpayers do.

“In other business sectors, companies that create damage to public health and safety or ruin the environment are subject to severe   penalties.  Hence, carmakers are forced to recall defective cars, and drug makers can go to jail or go out of business for products that injure, rather than cure, people. Coal plant companies suffer nothing for the damage they cause to the environment and human health.

“Cheng further claims that there is no renewable technology that can provide large amounts of base load electricity.  This is absolutely false. Geothermal energy has been providing base load capacity to the Luzon grid since the early 1980s. The Tiwi and Mak-Ban geothermal plants provide a combined base load capacity of 600.73 megawatts with 90% capacity factor. The Leyte geothermal production field produces 708 megawatts, providing electricity to Cebu, western and central Visayas.

“There is another serious implication about the Philippines being   largely a coal consuming country, which Cheng ignores.  Our continued heavy reliance on coal is placing a good chunk of our economic future in the hands of foreign coal and oil cartels – a fate which we should be devoutly avoiding.

“Advocates of renewable energy like me do not propose any overnight shift to renewables. Let us do an intelligent safety shift.

“Power system planning is a complex part of energy and economic development planning. This endeavor is especially complex not only because of the extraordinary investments required  but because the economic  lives of  existing power plants, operating under long-term contracts,  must be phased out. As their contracts expire, there should be in place green energy systems ready to expand and take up the power load. 

“Those systems will be in place if we can commit ourselves today to energy transition from high to low carbon mix.  So what we seek at this stage is a rational commitment to a new Energy and Power development that will usher with good speed specific growth targets, and investments in clean energy systems.”

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Congratulations to our former colleague, Sheila Coronel, who was recently appointed dean of academic affairs at the Columbia Journalism School in New York city. She will assume the position beginning July 1, 2014. Sheila  received the university’s Presidential Teaching Award in 2011 as one of Columbia’s best teachers.
Before beginning her teaching career at Columbia in 2006, Sheila  had co-founded and led the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism for many years. She received the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2003.
          “Sheila is a superb journalist, teacher, and leader,” said Dean Steve Coll.  â€œHer deep commitment to investigative reporting, data science and global journalism makes her ideally positioned to advance the school’s most important priorities.”

 Sheila  had been serving as the Toni Stabile Professor of Professional Practice in investigative journalism and  director at the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism since 2006. She will continue to serve in those roles even with her new position.
She  succeeds Bill Grueskin, who was dean of academic affairs since 2008. She will continue her teaching and her directorship at the Stabile Center.
 She holds  master’s degrees in political science from the University of the Philippines, and political sociology from the London School of Economics.  She began her career in investigative journalism in 1982 at the Philippine Panorama.

Sheila was free lancing  for Panorama when I was its editor. I asked her to join the staff, and she was happy with the offer, and contributed to making the magazine a respected publication during the Marcos regime.

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My email:[email protected]