sexandsensibilities.com

The Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) is dismayed that President Aquino did not mention the RH Bill in his SONA. He had spoken strongly on the measure twice, at UP Diliman’s commencement exercises in March and the Philippine Medical Association’s annual meeting in Davao in May. The RH Bill is also an integral part of the legislative agenda in the president’s Philippine Development Plan. Was the omission a Freudian or political slip? Ironically, he singularly and generously mentioned Catholic hierarchy officials, the same ones, who make governance difficult for him—who question his integrity and threaten him with damnation and civil disobedience.

PNoy, we hope that your special mention of cardinals and bishops does not mean you will allow them to dictate health and population policies, like they did during Arroyo’s time. We hope it will not mean turning your back on the RH policy and funding that poor families need so direly.

Obstinate and dogma-based obstruction to the RH Bill for the past nine or so years has caused irreparable damage to the lives and wellbeing of poor women and their families. On that one day of the SONA alone, 11 pregnant women and 21 infants died because of inadequate and out-of-reach RH services. Five thousand unplanned pregnancies took place, many to poorest women and couples. Some 2,800 of those pregnancies will become children who will suffer hunger, deprivation, and possibly neglect because their parents are not ready for them. Some 1,600 of those pregnancies will be ended by mothers after much agony, through desperate and unsafe procedures.

All of the loss of life and suffering are preventable; through the RH program and health system improvements provided in the RH Bill.

PNoy, it is not right, not matuwid na daan, to allow a fundamentalist faction of the Catholic Church to hold hostage Congressional hearings on the Bill.

Many of our people—your boss—have already taken a stand in favor of the RH Bill. Religious leaders, lawyers and human rights advocates have stated that the bill conforms to contemporary moral and legal standards, whether religious teachings, human rights instruments, medical ethics, and Philippine laws. Scientists and science practitioners have stated that RH Bill strategies are in accord with current scientific evidence in the fields of economics, medicine, demography, sociology and ecology. Moreover, majority of respondents to respected national polls, such as the Social Weather Station and Pulse Asia, have repeatedly backed RH policies, programs and funding; even those residents in “purported Catholic bailiwicks” like Manila, Paranaque, Bohol and Cebu.

Now is the time for Congress to vote on this measure.

PNoy, we hope that even if the opportunity at SONA has passed, you will still make sure that the voice of the people on this measure will not be thwarted again, but will be heard and counted in this Congress, this year.

Contact persons: Junice Demeterio-Melgar 0949-4432628; Joy Salgado 0915-4079894