EDITORIAL || RH Bill Mis(conception)

by Mhikie Manzanares

What is obviously needed is realistic information rather than black propagandas.

Maintaining the balance between the constitution and morality is a continuing challenge, especially in these crucial times of our country, where the warfare between the Aquino administration and Catholic Church over the Reproductive health bill escalates into a mutually damaging debate.

One of the main concern of the Reproductive health Bill is that the Philippines makes it the 12^th most populous nation in the world today, that in the 2008’survey of Social Weather Stations (SWS) in Manila, Parañaque and Cebu (country’s most crowded cities) from December 2008 to March 2009, it confirms that seventy percent of three local polls want family planning education in public schools, and seventy-one percent of the country’s catholic members are in good turn for the passage of Reproductive Health Bill. 

In effect, the result of the SWS’s survey triggers the insistence of Albay’ Representative Edcel Lagman to enact the House Bill 5043 or the Reproductive Health Bill, Responsible Parenthood, and Population Development Act of 2008. The bill on the other hand promotes programs that benefit the women reproductive health; this includes the sex education in public schools and grants an access to contraceptives such as condoms and pills, the focus of this bill is to raise the awareness of both natural and artificial methods of birth control, prevention of abortion and management of maternal complications, management of reproductive diseases such as HIV/AIDS and STDs and the elimination of violence against women.

In the recent collision of the Catholic Church and the Administration, the church remain at their stand  and still  insists their disapproval to the Reproductive Health Bill, and at this moment it seems like informing the Filipinos  is the only way to oppose the negative propaganda of Catholic Church.

The hierarchy of Catholic Church is insisting that the contraceptives will only lead to legalizing the abortion with the comparison to other countries, but as a subject of fact the Reproductive Health Bill itself promotes the prevention of abortion, just like what the catholic countries like Panama and El Salvador did. The Reproductive Health bill is often misunderstood as an ‘anti-life’ bill, but the truth one of the main plan of this bill is to decrease the mortality rate in the country by means of contraceptives and awareness through sex education. The contraceptives, on the other hand is said to have a life threatening side. Scientific evidence shows the risk of using pills is 1 in 200,000. The risk of dying from a vasectomy is 1 in 1 million and the risk of dying from using an IUD is 1 in 10 million. Compare to the ratio of 1 in 10,000 of death rate in pregnancies.

The Philippines has had a long and a colorful journey, which resulted to cultural diverged society. In our journey we encountered unusual barriers; catastrophic devastation, economic downfall, and now religious imperialism. Amidst the religious diversity we should maintain the national unity. The family as the center of the society must be protected, in all aspects of morality and constitution. RH Bill is a pro-life bill, because this bill will uphold all the provisions of the right for life. RH Bill is a pro-choice bill because with this bill every one will have the right to be informed and the right to make educated decisions. RH Bill is a pro-poor bill, for the reason that all the above-mentioned provisions are intended for poor. The RH Bill is pro-life, pro-choice and pro-poor, and these ‘pros’ are the catalyst for economic development. RH Bill is a deviation for an avenue of new culture of education and free agency, and these will lead us to the highway of progression.