MANILA, Philippines - Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III has expressed concern over groups lobbying for the passage of the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill.
During the debates on the RH bill at the Senate, Sotto claimed that groups pushing for the passage of the measure have “sinister” motives that have nothing to do with saving the lives of mothers and infants.
“I am not against reproductive health, not against the RH bill per se. What I have difficulties with are the complexities and formulation of what we are pushing for in the RH bill,” he said.
Sotto pointed out that there is no legal prohibition against the sale of contraceptives in the country and, in fact, the national contraceptive prevalence rate now stands at 51 percent.
“Contraceptives are not illegal here. What the bill intends to do for women is good. But when this is prescribed (under the law) then we will have our difficulties (with the bill). Most of us find it complex. We find groups, NGOs, pharmaceutical companies or business interests behind the bill or supporting people behind the bill, so this adds to our fears,” Sotto said.
He cited the Family Planning Organization of the Philippines as among the groups lobbying for the passage of the RH bill.
The organization is the largest non-government family planning group in the country and a member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) founded by Margaret Sanger, according to Sotto.
“She (Sanger) is the inventor or founder of eugenics and eugenics is the scientific strategy of eliminating the poor, the weak, the useless and the uneducated. This cannot be denied, I saw it in their website, it’s there,” he said.
“If it was just Senators Cayetano and Santiago alone who were pushing for the bill then we could have passed this yesterday,” he added.
Sotto also claimed that contraceptive manufacturers are lobbying for the passage of the bill because of money.
In response to Sotto’s claims, Cayetano, the principal sponsor of the RH bill, clarified that no person would be forced to use any particular type of contraceptive.
“On the contrary, what this bill is providing for is access to info, services, contraceptives or whatever is prescribed to them that is previously not available,” she added.
Cayetano said that the IPPF “supports all forms of family planning depending on what is considered legal in the individual countries and therefore, in countries where abortion, as in the Philippines, is not a method considered legal, then it is not a form of family planning that they support.”
She added that in her research about the IPPF, she has never heard anyone of them, either directly or indirectly, expressing their desire to legalize abortion or in any way promote abortion.
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader and Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman yesterday urged the House leadership to set a deadline to end debates on the RH bill and start the final voting on the measure.
Lagman, principal author of the RH bill in the House, made the call as floor discussions on the measure resumed Tuesday night with Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez questioning some of the provisions of the bill.
However, the showdown between Lagman and Rodriguez was cut short after the latter sought details of the amendments of the bill.
The debate was set to resume Wednesday night with four more lawmakers, including Representatives Pedro Romualdo (Camiguin), Sergio Apostol (Leyte), and Gabriel Quisumbing (Cebu), scheduled to interpellate Lagman.
“When to put the RH bill to a vote is a very hard question to answer. The (House) leadership is supposed to come out with a schedule so we hope they soon come out with that,” Lagman told reporters.
“Assuming there is a timetable, there must be definite rules to have orderly proceedings and to afford members the opportunity to ask questions. But there is also a rule, which says that members should avoid repetitive questions which have already been answered. Sponsors (of the RH Bill) should also make brief and responsive answers so that interpellators can maximize the time,” he said.
Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. earlier gave assurances that the plenary debates on the RH bill would not be railroaded even if the measure was among President Aquino’s priority bills.
Belmonte said not all lawmakers opposing the bill would be changing their position just because Aquino endorsed it.
House Majority Leader and Mandaluyong Rep. Neptali Gonzales said the legislative process for the measure is not as fast as some would like to believe since there is still the period of amendments where lawmakers would put in some changes.