Macafra on RH Bill

As I’ve read in the Inquirer article, “Reproductive health bill: Facts, fallacies”, written by Rep. Edcel Lagman, the bill does not have any bias for or against either natural or modern family planning. It basically involves our right as Filipino citizens to live a comfortable and satisfying life.
The bill aims to improve the existing reproductive health services provided to us. As written in the same article, “… It (the RH Bill) is a departure from the present setup in which the provision for reproductive health services is devolved to local government units, and consequently, subjected to the varying strategies of local government executives and suffers from a death of funding…”


Coverage of RH Bill

1. Information and access to natural and modern family planning
2. Maternal, infant and child health nutrition
3. Promotion of breast feeding
4. Prevention of abortion and management of post-abortion complications
5. Adolescent and youth health
6. Prevention and management of reproductive tract infections, HIV/AIDS and STDs
7. Elimination of violence against women
8. Counseling on sexuality and sexual and reproductive health
9. Treatment of breast and reproductive tract cancers
10. Male involvement and participation in RH
11. Prevention and treatment of infertility
12. RH education for the youth.

***If Rep. Edcel Lagman’s RH Bill (House Bill No. 96) will be passed, these are some of the things that will happen in accordance to it based on the Inquirer article.

Strengthening of Popcom. The existing Population Commission shall be reoriented to promote both natural and modern family planning methods. It shall serve as the central planning, coordinating, implementing and monitoring body for the comprehensive and integrated policy on reproductive health and population development.
Capability building of community-based volunteer workers. The workers shall undergo additional and updated training on the delivery of reproductive healthcare services and shall receive not less than 10-percent increase in honoraria upon successful completion of training.
Midwives for skilled birth attendance. Every city and municipality shall endeavor to employ an adequate number of midwives and other skilled attendants.
Emergency obstetrics care. Each province and city shall endeavor to ensure the establishment and operation of hospitals with adequate and qualified personnel that provide emergency obstetrics care.
Hospital-based family planning. Family planning methods requiring hospital services like ligation, vasectomy and IUD insertion shall be available in all national and local government hospitals.
Contraceptives as essential medicines. Reproductive health products shall be considered essential medicines and supplies and shall form part of the National Drug Formulary considering that family planning reduces the incidence of maternal and infant mortality.
Reproductive health education. RH education in an age-appropriate manner shall be taught by adequately trained teachers from Grade 5 to 4th year high school. As proposed in the bill, core subjects include responsible parenthood, natural and modern family planning, proscription and hazards of abortion, reproductive health and sexual rights, abstinence before marriage, and responsible sexuality.
Certificate of compliance. No marriage license shall be issued by the Local Civil Registrar unless the applicants present a Certificate of Compliance issued for free by the local Family Planning Office. The document should certify that they had duly received adequate instructions and information on family planning, responsible parenthood, breast feeding and infant nutrition.
Ideal family size. The State shall encourage two children as the ideal family size. This is neither mandatory nor compulsory and no punitive action may be imposed on couples having more than two children.
Employers’ responsibilities. Employers shall respect the reproductive health rights of all their workers. Women shall not be discriminated against in the matter of hiring, regularization of employment status or selection for retrenchment. Employers shall provide free reproductive health services and commodities to workers, whether unionized or unorganized.
Multimedia campaign. Popcom shall initiate and sustain an intensified nationwide multimedia campaign to raise the level of public awareness on the urgent need to protect and promote reproductive health and rights.

The Fallacies
Misinformation is the primary source of all the campaigns against the RH Bill. People just base their stand about the passage of the bill on hearsays and their conclusions. They do not actually exercise their right to know the truth and the REAL facts about the bill.
As what the writer of the House Bill 96, Rep. Edcel Lagman, said on the article I’ve cited, I will enumerate the fallacies that are still continuing to spread even if this has been written 2 years ago already.

1. The bill is not anti-life.
2. The bill does not interfere with family life.
3. The bill does NOT legalize ABORTION  and does not aim to lead into its legalization.
4. Contraceptives do not have life-threatening side effects.
5. The bill will not promote contraceptive mentality.
6. The bill does not prohibit pregnancy.
7. The bill does not impose a two-child policy.
8. Sexuality Education will neither spawn “a generation of sex maniacs” nor breed a culture of promiscuity.
9. The bill does not claim that family planning is the panacea for poverty.

I will not anymore elaborate the arguments held by Rep. Lagman on each fallacy raised. You can search the article in Inquirer’s website and read it. I just provided the main points in it.

UP Economists support the RH Bill
I am not sure if this includes of all the UP economists now. The article I’ve read about this had been written 2 years ago. It is entitled, “Seven Reasons why UP economists support the RH Bill” by Fernando Fajardo for Cebu Daily News dated August 29, 2008. Maybe this may not be as convincing as before but it’s up to the readers to believe what they want to. I just included this here because I remembered that there had been a controversy about the RH bill 2 years ago where it’s been first raised in the Congress. In my opinion, the content of this article is relevant enough to be cited here.
There had been a forum conducted before on the Perspective and Imperatives of the RH Bill by Dr. Ernesto Pernia and other organizations. According to Mr. Fajardo, Dr. Pernia told about the position paper written by almost all the UP Economists then entitled “Population, Poverty, politics and the Reproductive Health Bill” released August 11, 2008. This is were the seven reasons are enumerated.
Below are excerpts from the article regarding the seven reasons.

1. First, the experience from across Asia indicates that a population policy cum government-funded FP program has been a critical complement to sound economic policy and poverty reduction.
2. Second, at the micro level, family size is closely associated with poverty incidence, as consistently borne out by household survey data over time.
3. Third, there is evidence that the poor prefer smaller families, except that they are unable to achieve their preference.
4. Fourth, lack of access to contraception has important health implications.
5. Fifth, the health risks associated with mistimed and unwanted pregnancies are higher for adolescent mothers, as they are more likely to have complications during labor (FPS 2006).
6. Sixth, there are unintended social costs (negative externalities) arising from mistimed and unplanned pregnancies.
7. Seventh, ensuring access to the full range of modern (“artificial”) FP methods cum appropriate information raises the success rate of achieving the desired family size.

Again, i did not include the arguments which contains all the supporting statistics for each reason. Just don’t be lazy and read the whole article about it.

Issue on Religion
I believe in the concept of The Separation of the Church and the State, unless, there’s only ONE prevailing religion in a country, to which I doubt is existing. (I excluded the case of North Korea because there is a limited information about it. I cannot say if all the North Koreans are Buddhists or some of them are already Christian converts.) There is only one state governing the whole country. On the other hand, the religions in each country are numerous.
In relation to the RH Bill, I agree with Fr. Joaquin G. Bernas, S.J. on his article in Inquirer entitled “RH bill talking points”. He said there that “…it cannot be denied that the main opposition to artificial contraception is predominantly based on religious grounds. And the debate is going on within a pluralist state system. In this context, I hold that it is not legitimate for the state to impose on non-Catholics what is predominantly a Catholic rule of conduct.”
Filipinos are not all Catholics, there are also Muslims, Protestants, INCs, Buddhists, Hindus and other minor religious groups. Being voted in their position, the politicians should take note of ALL the stands of the religions and not decide on based on the wants of one religion. They have the task of ensuring us the best action and decision in order to govern and guide us.