An end to RH drama

It was a strategic move on the part of Supreme Court (SC) chief justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno when she referred to the reproductive health (RH) controversy to proper body of men of science to settle with finality the issues raised on what are or what are not abortion-inducing contraceptive products. Sereno’s move was wise because it averted another feud between the Judiciary and the Executive Branch. It also moved the SC away from yet another unnecessary controversy.

In the scathing remarks delivered at his state of the nation address (SONA) last July, President Rodrigo Duterte practically accused Sereno of holding hostage the government’s RH program. The presidential tirades zeroed in on the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by the SC more than two years ago against the implementation of the RH Law.

In what appeared to be a veiled chide in response to the President’s remarks, the Chief Justice cited all the government needed to do was to recertify the 51 contraceptive products covered by the TRO and it will be automatically lifted.

The “automatic lifting” of the SC TRO prevented the High Court from having to entertain the endless stream of adversarial petitions and pleas. These are expected to follow the eventual resolution of the recertification requirements by the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA).

This is a brilliant move because it rescued the SC from a situation where it will have to take a position on an issue that is purely technical and scientific in nature. If Sereno had not made this move, SC Justices will have to deal with issues which they are not even experts on.

It was lessons learned from the past when cause-oriented groups asked the SC to stop the commercialization of food crops that have gone through the process of agricultural biotechnology. The SC initially took the side of the cause-oriented groups, only to reverse itself later.

Before that, our justices found themselves bombarded by the political arguments presented by cause-oriented groups and the technical-scientific explanation provided by the agricultural experts from both the government and academic sectors.

The recertification of the contraceptive products is a process that belongs to the realm of science – perhaps, pharmacology in particular. The Chief Justice has also spared FDA Director-General Nela Charade Puno of having to prove her worth as a pharmacist by defending the findings of her agency regarding the contraceptives in question.

With the automatic lifting of the TRO, aggrieved parties will now have to go to the Office of the President (OP) or the Department of Health (DOH) to question the recertification of the 51 contraceptives done by the FDA.

In a way, Sereno may have passed on the headache to President Duterte. Perhaps, it was “sweet revenge” on the part of the Chief Justice.

Sereno may have dodged the bullets with this official clarification on this ruling, but she has much more headaches coming with the start of the public hearing today of the House committee on justice on her impeachment case.

Returning Health Secretary Francisco Duque has already thrown his full support behind FDA’s Puno. In a recent press statement, Duque said he has given his backing to the FDA findings on the 51 contraceptives since he believes that the agency’s findings are based on science and on a sound technical process.

In fairness to FDA’s Puno, she appears to have also played her cards right. As soon as Sereno made it clear that only an FDA recertification was needed to lift the SC TRO, Puno reportedly created a technical working group (TWG) composed of scientists, medical practitioners and researchers to do the review and reevaluation of the contraceptive products in question.

This saved the FDA from the gunfire from RH critics. When the FDA’s self-imposed deadline for the recertification last Oct. 31 ended, the pressure on Puno,  however mounted. FDA’s Puno did not release the official findings of the TWG until last Nov. 12.

Or this was some 12 days past her self-imposed deadline. Apparently, it was a deliberate move on Puno’s part. If she had released the list earlier, she would have been seen as succumbing to the pressure of those who wanted to shortcut the FDA reevaluation process. If she had delayed it too long, she would have been seen as giving in to the pressure of those who wanted to derail the recertification process.

In a way, by delaying the release of the results, FDA’s Puno had asserted the independence of her agency from the giant pressure it had to face during this process. Some of that pressure reportedly came from a handful of “senior government officials” breathing down on FDA’s neck while the reevaluation process was going on.

Some of these “officials” reportedly had the gall to name-drop President Duterte just to pressure the scientists working on the process.

The wisest of all of FDA’s moves has been to put this two-year-old issue to a fitting conclusion. The government was facing a crisis of sorts on the RH front. Based on reports, the DOH may no longer be able to meet the requirements for contraceptives. The shelves of the country’s health centers are almost empty. If the recertification process had not been completed soonest, the government’s RH program would have come to a total standstill.

Religious and other Church-based groups may not agree. But reproductive health is a global issue that should have been addressed “yesterday,” so to speak. The issue is so urgent that even the United Nations has put it on top of its agenda. Held more than 10 years ago, the participating governments in the UN International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo declared that “all countries should strive to make accessible through primary health-care systems, reproductive health to all individuals of appropriate ages as soon as possible and no later than the year 2015.”

The two-year-old SC TRO delayed access of our women and families to RH services from the government. The FDA recertification that lifted the TRO finally put an end to this long-drawn RH drama.