RH Law: We should protect defenseless babies!

One of the very reasons why we were against then President Benigno “PNoy” Aquino III was due to our fight against the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill which under his watch wasn’t a law crafted for the welfare or culture of the Filipino people, but rather it was copied in Toto from a US law, which was also adopted by the United Nations Population Development Program (UNDP). Our version of the RH, which later was signed into a law by Pres. Aquino had strings tied to it from the so-called Millennium fund, which was dangled to Pres. Aquino by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton one of the foremost Liberal minds in the US.

Well, yesterday Pres. Rodrigo Duterte issued Executive Order 12 which implements Republic Act 10354 or the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012. The Reproductive Health (RH) Law has not been implemented due to a temporary restraining order issued by the Supreme Court. Now the million-peso question is, can Pres. Duterte implement this EO when the SC has still locked this with a restraining order?

Palace advocates say that the strengthening of the RH Law implementation is part of the Duterte administration’s 10-point socio-economic agenda to “enable poor couples to make informed choices on financial and family planning. “Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that at least six million women, of whom two million are poor, have unmet need for any modern method of contraception.” This is where I am in total contrast!

Again, I’d like to point out that the SC ruled that life begins at conception and if contraception prevents life from growing, then we have to thank the Supreme Court for protected the life of the defenseless and unborn. The problem lies upon the fact that too many people in the government wants the easy way out… giving out condoms like they were giving children candies without explaining to the poor women that condoms in many instances have failed and resulted in unwanted pregnancies.

Whether they believe it or not, the Catholic Church has one of the best family planning methods available if only the poor couples would visit their parishes and learn from the experts on how natural planning method can be done without buying any contraceptives. If the poor are ill-educated about natural family planning… I’m sure those Department of Health (DOH) officials are just as clueless on this family planning method.

This is where we should ask the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) to engage the Duterte administration on this task rather that go all out against him, which we learned during our battles against the RH Bill was highly divisive. In my book the implementation of the RH Law is nothing but a Population Control program. Hey aren’t they reducing our population already with the Extra Judicial Killings? Do they have to kill innocent defenseless babies inside the wombs of their mothers too?

Don’t get me wrong, I still believe and support Pres. Duterte, but someone must educate him that the Philippine population is quite healthy as compare to Japan (which is now a reverse pyramid) or Singapore who are now trying to promote more children. Even China has done away with their One-Child Policy so why should the Philippines reduce our population?

Our problem is unbridled corruption which denies the poor job opportunities and when we solve this problem… then the Philippines will move forward knowing that our population growth has helped fuel our economy. This is why Filipino workers are the most wanted abroad! Filipinos are everywhere outside the country because they can’t find jobs here at home!

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Over the weekend, Cebu Province braced for its first typhoon of the Year code name “Auring” but before it even reached the shores of Cebu, it was downgraded into a low-pressure area, which brought in a lot of rains to the point that 3,000 families in Northern and Southern Cebu had to be evacuated. This was reported to the media by Julius Regner, the spokesman for the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRM) where there were 30 affected Barangays from Barili, Pinamungahan, Dumanjug, Alcantara, Sogod and Toledo City.

Flooding was also reported in the town of Consolacion, North of Cebu City and landslides in Barangay Pulangbato in Cebu City, which totally blocked the entire road. But as soon as the low pressure left us… the rains continued to pour down promising a very wet Sinulog Festival. Again I would like to emphasize for the need to construct real-honest-to-goodness Evacuation Centers. Right now all typhoon victims are housed in their respective public schools in their locality. I believe that this practice should change and each Congressional District ought to come up with a uniformed Evacuation Center complete with facilities for typhoon victims and refugees.

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