“Rep. Edcel Lagman has written the Reproductive Health and Population Management Bill that is now being considered by Congress and which is opposed by the Church.”
by Ducky Paredes
A letter from a reader: “I enjoy reading your Malaya articles since you are the only one whose opinion is very objective, fair and balance unlike the other Malaya contributors. On the above subject, I totally agree with you - it looks like the Church, especially the puppets of Rome, have been abusing their privilege of being separated from the State. Here in the USA, any body or group (religious or what) that’s classified as tax-free entity will lose this privilege (tax-free) if they start meddling with the government affairs.
“I think if the Philippine government starts taking away their tax-free status when they meddle, I bet the church will keep its mouth shout. These group are now so powerful and rich and I start to wonder if the Philippine society is going back to the old Spanish friar-led days. It’s scary. Anyhow, just my two cents. Keep up the good work.” — Andy Viloria
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The letter comes at a good time because the government is again trying to talk to the Catholic Church about population control.
The United Nations has population and reproductive health programs that have been adopted by 140 countries, including some from where we inherited our Catholic values such as Italy — where Rome and the Vatican are, Spain and Mexico, whose Spanish viceroy was managing the Philippines for Spain during the colonial times, and the United States.
These programs are not acceptable in other countries such as those run by the Taliban and similarly situated governments.
What does the UN population and reproductive Heath Initiative want to accomplish? For women all over the world to: plan their families and avoid unwanted pregnancies, undergo pregnancy and childbirth safely and avoid sexually transmitted infections. The UN program also wants to combat violence against women and promote the equality of women.
The main goals of the UN Program of Action are: Universal access to reproductive health services by 2015; Universal primary education and closing the gender gap in education by 2015; Reducing maternal mortality by seventy-five percent by 2015; Reducing infant mortality; and Increasing life expectancy.
This is also what a lot of us want to happen in our country. We are unable to move forward, however, because the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) is just dead-set against any population and reproductive health initiative.
Rep. Edcel Lagman has written the Reproductive Health and Population Management Bill that is now being considered by Congress and which is opposed by the Church. Lagman has proposed a Legislators-Bishops Dialogue to Malacanang, with the idea that if the President and CBCP meet with the legislators sponsoring the bill in Congress, they might have a fruitful discussion and dialogue about the specific provisions of the bill,
While a lot of other countries have adopted their own reproductive health and population management policies, in the Philippines, we cannot get moving because the Church takes the medieval position that contraceptives and condoms are products from Hell.
Thus, the 2006 Family Planning Survey (FPS) of the National Statistics Office reveals that 10 Filipina women die every 24 hours from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. High incidence of high-risk births, inadequate prenatal care, and lack of information and means to manage complications in difficult pregnancies account for much of the increased risks of dying during pregnancy and childbirth.
The 2006 FPS also showed that the actual total fertility rate (TFR) of 3.2 is higher than the desired fertility rate of 2.5. The TFR is higher among women from the poor sector where they have three times more children than the rich. Despite the high unmet need among the poor, contraceptive use is still lower among the poor women with 47.3% Contraceptive Prevalence Rate versus the 52.4% among the non-poor.
Thus, the poor are the real victims of the Church’s medieval mind-set while the more well-to-do generally ignore what their Bishops say.
The current policy of the national government is not to take a stand and instead it has adopted population control methods approved by the CBCP which (sadly) do not work!
With the current crisis on food and the continuous worsening of poverty in the country, I believe that it is urgent that the President include the passage of a national policy on population and reproductive health among her legislative priorities. But, of course, she will not since she styles herself as being a good daughter of the Church. When she was still of child-bearing age, however, this President confesses that she did use contraceptives to control her own contributions to the country’s population.
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My own take on this is that our high population growth rates only make our already poor even poorer. We have children in this country who do not have enough to eat and who cannot have an education. Even if they did, with the lack of nutrients in their diet during their formative years, many of these children have very little hope for learning much since their poor diet has already affected the development of their brains.
Is it wrong to try to control our population? Is what the Bishops are telling us really what God wants for us — high population rates that challenge our country’s economic capacity to provide for her population?
Why would our God specifically want us Pinoys to suffer?
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The Third Leg of the six-leg San Mig Senior Tournament of the Federation of Philippine Amateur Senior Golfers, Inc. (FPASGI) will be on Friday, July 18, 2008 at Intramuros Golf Club. Tee-off will be sequential beginning at 6:30 up to 9 in the morning.
Tournament fee (only FPASGI members can join) is P1,500 which includes everything – Green Fee, Caddy Fee, Mandatory Mulligan, Lunch, Giveaways and Raffle Prizes.
Intramuros is not an easy course. It may be shorter than regular courses but the number of hazards that one has to avoid makes it as much as a challenge as other, much longer courses.
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hvp 07.14.08)
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