Solons to block population bill

All three Bohol congressmen vowed to oppose the passage of the controversial population management bill even as the measure is gaining supporters ahead of plenary debates in the House of Representatives starting tomorrow.
While more congressmen are purportedly backing House Bill 5043, a bill seeking to enact a population control measure, Representatives Edgar Chatto (1st district), Roberto Cajes (2nd district) and Adam Relson Jala (3rd district) stood firm with their position to vote against the measure.
Chatto told the Chronicle yesterday that the three Bohol solons are all pro-life and will not support HB 5043.
“We have been consistent with our position that we are against the measure which actually weakens the fiber of moral life,” Chatto stressed.
Cajes, for his part said he will definitely vote against the reproductive health bill adding that “it will not compliment sound economic policy neither will it contribute to poverty reduction.”
“Self-discipline and self-control will solve most, if not all, our problems,” Cajes pointed out countering the argument of the bill’s proponents that over-population is interrelated with poverty.
Meanwhile, Tagbilaran Bishop Leonardo Medroso also renewed his call for the faithful to help lobby to lawmakers and persuade them to block the reproductive health bill.
Medroso, chair of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Episcopal
Commission on Canon Law, said the issue is a serious matter for the Church because “it is a threat to the sanctity of family and life.”
HOUSE DEBATES
Vigorous debates on the proposed measure is expected during the House plenary starting tomorrow.
Yesterday, HB 5043 chief proponent and Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman fired the opening salvo declaring that the Catholic Church would render itself “irrelevant” to its flock by continuously opposing the bill.
Lagman insists that an overwhelming number of Filipinos “strongly approve of the government’s allocation of funds for modern contraceptives.”
“If the Catholic Church wants to continue to become significant in the lives of the faithful, [it] must listen to [its] flock or risk of becoming irrelevant,” he said.
SOUND ECONOMIC POLICY
According to Chatto, a sound economic policy should address the issue on poverty.
“Personally, in the hierarchy of values there are provisions in the bill that I cannot take such as encouraging sex education at a very young age,” the solon explained.
Chatto said the provision for full access to modern contraceptives would also mean a huge cut of our national allocation for public health.
He explained that if the bill is adopted, contraceptives will be accessible alongside with common drugs.
Chatto believes that achieving the desired size of a family can be accomplished through a joint advocacy of the state and the Church such as providing opportunities for work.
BIGGER PROTEST
Bishop Medroso led a huge crowd more than a month ago to rally against the House bill.
Medroso, considered as one of the Catholic Church’s influential leaders, promised a “bigger protest” if Congress will approve the bill.
“Boholanos have shown their faith in God recognizing the sacredness of life,” Medroso said.
Catholic dioceses in the country have been holding prayer rallies, and started lobbying to lawmakers.
“Dioceses nationwide should unite for the nationwide protest to reject a proposed bill that destroys life,” Medroso added.
Medroso said he is ready to mobilize parishioners in the Tagbilaran Diocese for the success of the campaign to scrap the legislative measure.
SURVEYS
With the House debates set beginning tomorrow, Lagman made public a Pulse Asia survey that purportedly indicated popular support for his population control advocacy.
He said that the survey, conducted before the 2007 elections, showed that 90 percent of Catholic respondents supposedly “declared their support for state subsidy of modern contraceptives.”
Catholics opposed to the bill consider the state subsidy provision an affront to their religious belief, noting that the government would be using taxpayers’ money, which is collected mainly from the predominantly Catholic population – for a policy directly against the teachings of the Church.
More than four decades ago, Pope Paul VI issued an encyclical “Humanae Vitae” to enlighten its faithful on questions over matters such as over-population.
The document, for instance, tackles the common argument of “pro-choice” lawmakers that contraceptive use would lead to “women empowerment” in the face of their partners’ domestic abuse, a situation supposedly prevalent in rural Philippines.
“A man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection,” Paul VI wrote in 1968.
But Lagman insisted that according to the Pulse Asia survey results, 89 percent of the respondents were in favor of government fund allocation for contraceptive methods such as pills, intrauterine devices, condoms, ligation, and vasectomy.
Overall, he said, 92 percent of them “believe it is important to mitigate fertility and plan their family.”
By KIT BAGAIPO