Lacson, Biazon push for bills on population management

MANILA, Philippines – Senators Rodolfo Biazon and Panfilo Lacson are pushing for congressional action on their bills promoting population management despite the Catholic Church’s objection to artificial methods of birth control.

Biazon said many Catholic countries in the world – such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Venezuela, Italy, Spain and Portugal – had adopted population management programs.

“While other countries are already celebrating the success of their reproductive health care initiatives, we have yet to look forward to a reconciliation of the positions of the church and state to implement our own,” Biazon said.

When the 14th Congress opened, Biazon re-filed Senate Bill No. 40 titled “The Reproductive Health Care Act” (Providing for Reproductive Health Care Structures and Appropriating Funds Therefore) and SB 187 titled Integrated Population and Development Act (Establishing an Integrated Population and Development Policy, Strengthening Its Implementing Mechanism and for Other Purposes). Biazon said the practical benefits of his bills on reproductive health care information and services include: improved maternal and infant health, reduced exposure to health risks, reduced recourse to abortion and expanded opportunities for education, employment and social participation for women; reduced competition and dilution of resources, reductions in household poverty, and more possibilities for shared decision-making for the couple; and

eradication of poverty, hunger, malnutrition; greater access to primary education; improvement of the economy and provision of more jobs; and support for gender equality for the country.

Lacson has also filed SB 43 seeking to create a reproductive health and population management council to implement an integrated policy on reproductive health.

“Advocating population management is not being anti-life. In fact, it is pro-country and pro-people. My bill still treats abortion as a serious crime but provides for other Christian methods to manage our country’s monstrous population growth rate that has become one of the world’s highest at 2.36 percent,” he said.

The bill contains provisions for timely, complete and accurate information and education on reproductive health, and access to safe, adequate and affordable reproductive health care services – all as a preventive measure against abortion.

SB 43 promotes a population management program that aims to encourage limiting the number of children to an affordable level of two children per family; discourage migration to urban centers and decongesting thickly populated areas; promote effective partnership among the national government, local government units and the private sector on population management; and conduct studies on and provide incentives for the deceleration of population growth.

Meantime, an official of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) yesterday said that President Arroyo would not be invited to the “festive but militant” pro-family and life prayer rally to be held at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) on July 25.

Fr. Melvin Castro, executive secretary of the CBCP-Episcopal Commission on Family and Life (ECFL), told Radio Veritas that pro-life legislators, and not Mrs. Arroyo, would be included in their guest list.

He explained that they decided not to send out an invitation to the President because the “debates (on reproductive health and population management bills) are still with the legislators so only congressmen and senators would be invited.”

Among those being considered to be invited are pro-life Sen. Aquilino Pimentel and Senate President Manuel Villar, who has been vocally announcing his intention to run for the presidency in 2010.

To ensure that the event, to be called “Humanae Vitae: Biyaya ng Buhay, Biyaya ng Pamilya,” would not be tainted with politics, the CBCP official said they would not allow their guests to deliver speeches before the crowd. “They are only invited to participate in the Mass and in the prayer rally. Their presence would only be acknowledged, nothing more,” he said.

It would also be pointless to invite legislators who are pushing for the passage of reproductive health bills and the use of artificial family planning, since they would not be open minded to their explanation, he said.

He added that some of the participants would also demonstrate their pro-life stance by marching from Sto. Domingo Church in Quezon City to UST along España, Manila City next Friday. –With Evelyn Macairan