Again, the RH bill

NO HOLDS BARRED

By Armida Siguion-Reyna

“It is inherently wrong for bishops and priests to block the passage of such a bill,” my editor-in-chief pointed out here in this paper, on Aug. 17. “The issue has nothing to do with religion or morality” neither “with morals or sexual permissiveness, or killing the so-called unborn.”

“Equipping oneself with artificial contraceptives is a matter of choice, never of religion,” said NCO. “Couples can choose to either go the Catholic way and go with the natural method or go with artificial methods.”

Meanwhile, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), perhaps recognizing that the “sexual permissiveness” bogey does not work especially with Pope Benedict ending the ban on the use of condoms, now says on-line, that:

“Every birth is a gift from God; every new life, a blessing, every birth a cause for rejoicing and praising God who create new life only out of love.

“Our country’s positive birth rate and a population composed of mostly young people are the main players that fuel the economy. A fact that even the government itself acknowledges as it is determined to feed, educate and keep the young people healthy.

“And rightly so, for even our Constitution acknowledges that human resource is a primary source of social and economic force.

“Earlier this year, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported that the hard-earned salaries of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) that were sent to their families for the first 11 months last year amounted to $18.3 billion, which is 7.3 percent increase in the same period in 2010.

“Filipino men and women who endure the travails of working in foreign soil play a significant role in propping up our economy.

“The country’s robust population is a big push to our economy, according to former US president Bill Clinton, local and international financial institutions and the public sector.

“It is therefore quite disturbing when the country is told that having too many school children is a burden to the national budget.

Can we have enough of schooled, skilled, diligent and highly driven young people who are a driving force of economic progress?

The draconian population control policy of the reproductive health bill would only curtail our economic growth. The problem of countries with former robust economies is the lack of young workers for their industries and inadequate support for their aging population.

The issue in maternal death as it has been mentioned is a serious concern. But the solution does not lie in suppressing births as provided in the RH bill.

Providing proper and adequate maternal care could be done without passing the RH bill, but by strengthening and improving access to existing medical services.

There is an ill portent for the nation when the government does not look at its own population as a source of grace and blessing.

There is a grave reason to worry when the government would rather suppress the population through RH bill instead of confronting the real causes of poverty.”

Sino ba ang nagsabing “having too many school children is a burden to the national budget”? Hindi iyan nakasaad doon sa RH bill, in the house known as HB 4424, “The Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population and Development Act of 2011.”

Sino rin ba ang nagsabing the solution to the high rate of maternal deaths in the country lies “in suppressing births as provided in the RB bill,” as if iyon ang nakalagay sa HB 4424, e hindi naman?

Section 3, Guiding Principle 6. “The State shall promote programs that: (1) enable couples, individuals and women to have the number and spacing of children and reproductive spacing they desire with due consideration to the health of women and resources available to them; (2) achieve equitable allocation and utilization of resources; (3) ensure effective partnership among the national government, local government units and the private sector in the design, implementation, coordination, integration, monitoring and evaluation of people-centered programs to enhance quality of life and environmental protection; (4) conduct studies to analyze demographic trends towards sustainable human development and (5) conduct scientific studies to determine safety and efficacy of alternative medicines and methods for reproductive health care development.”

Alin diyan ang “suppressing births”?

What is so wrong, what is so immoral, in enabling couples to have the number of the children they can afford to support, feed, clothe and educate, also by proper reproductive spacing — at ito ang gustung-gusto ko — “with due consideration to the health of the women”?

Sabi nga ng reelectionist US President Barack Obama, “We shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making health care decisions on behalf of women.” Women don’t have uniform bodies. One may easily give birth to eight, another may die after delivering her second child. Moreover, the puritanically “anti-abortion,” if made to choose between the life of a mother of seven children and the baby about to be born in the delivery room, in severe cases of only one surviving, either the mother or child, hulaan n’yo kung sino ang pipiliing mabuhay? The baby, because to let it die would be tantamount to abortion; never mind the mother.

It’s a far graver sin, I think, to irresponsibly keep on having children, ang mag-anak ka nang mag-anak pagkatapos, hindi mo mapakain, mabihisan, mapag-aral, na ang ending ay, hayun, magbebenta na lang ng sariling laman.

The CBCP statement likewise proclaims that “even our Constitution acknowledges that human resource is a primary source of social and economic force” as if it owns the acknowledgment, hello. That, too, is in the same section, 3. “Since human resource is among the principal assets of the country, maternal health, safe delivery of healthy children and their full human development and responsible parenting must be ensured through effective reproductive health care.”

Tigilan nila ako.

I’ll believe their sincerity only if, first, their lay leaders explain why they scream invectives at pro-RH bill supporters, “Your mothers should have aborted you!” Dahil ano yon, abortion is wrong, but they put on the record that their opponents on the issue should have been aborted?

And, second, if the CBCP reveals exactly what’s happened to Raul Cabonce, the parish priest from Tubay, Agusan, who was accused of rape by the 17-year-old scholar who was working under his care, in the first quarter of 2011. What came out of that case?

I mean, pwede ba? What moral right do they have to stop others from making their own informed choices when they can’t even clean up their own mess?

(For comments, write to armida114@yahoo.com)