Pro-RH bill lawmakers not waging war on Catholic Church

MANILA, Philippines - Lawmakers backing the Reproductive Health (RH) bill are not waging war against the Catholic Church, a member of the House of Representatives said yesterday.

Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin dismissed the statement of Batangas Archbishop Ramon Arguelles that President Aquino's endorsement of the bill is an "open war, a head-on collision" with the Catholic Church.

"We are not going to war with the Church," she said.

"In the aspect of Responsible Parenthood and Population Development, we are one with God and the Church. We are just doing what is morally right, and that is allowing parents to plan their families and provide them with food on the table, and education for every child."

Garin, one of the authors of the RH bill, said the endorsement of responsible parenthood shows the political leaders' determination to uplift the socioeconomic status of every Filipino family.

"A better Philippines is every leader's desire and for sure, God would not like to see His children in poverty and helplessness, with poverty becoming an inter-generational trait," she said.

"This is not a declaration of open war but a declaration of political will to uplift the quality of life of every Filipino family."

Akbayan Rep. Kaka Bag-ao, another author of the bill, said the endorsement coming from Aquino, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and the House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II "illustrates statesmanship" and "shows that they are facing their responsibility" to the Filipino people who have long wanted this bill to be enacted into law.

The House is scheduled to hold a vote on Aug. 7 whether to terminate debates on the bill and proceed to the period of amendments.

Pro-RH lawmakers said the debates have been dragging for too long.

After interpellations, the chamber will vote on the bill for third reading.

At the opening of the third and final regular session, Belmonte said the bill had long been discussed from "every possible perspective by advocates and opponents alike not only in the 15th Congress but in past congresses.

 "I think it is time that we finally put it to a vote. Let the chips fall where they may," he said.

Advocates vowed yesterday to campaign in next year's election against candidates opposing the approval of the RH bill.

In a statement, Elizabeth Angsioco, Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines (DSWP) chairperson, made the call following the pronouncement of Catholic bishops that they will come up with a list of anti-RH candidates they will support in next year's polls.

"The move is good for RH champions as non-inclusion in the bishops' list means that they favor saving mothers from dying and adolescent girls from untimely pregnancies," she said.

"The bishops will make our work easier. Inclusion in their list is a guarantee that a candidate is anti-RH. For women, especially those in poor communities such as our members, being anti-RH is being anti-women and anti-poor."

With the bishops' list, we will no longer need to do further research on included candidates. We will simply campaign against and not vote for them."

It has been proven from past elections that the Catholic bloc vote "is a myth," she added.

Angsioco said the Catholic Church openly went against former presidents Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada, as well as former senator Juan Flavier but all of them won the elections.

"Even at the local level, priests went against champions of the RH bill but virtually all of those re-electionists won. In contrast, during the 2010 elections, anti-RH candidates at the national level who said that they had the bishops' support, lost, and lost miserably," she said.

Angsioco said surveys of Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia have found that the Filipino people overwhelmingly support a government-funded family planning program, as well as the passage of the RH bill.

"Even Catholics support these because 81 percent to 94 percent of total respondents of these surveys identified themselves as Catholic. The fact is, it is only the Roman Catholic hierarchy and those closely allied to it that are rabidly against the RH bill," she said.

The DSWP is comprised of 264 community women's organizations with 40,000 members.

Fr. Melvin Castro, Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines-Episcopal Commission on Family and Life executive secretary, asked yesterday the Catholic faithful to offer a nine-day novena starting Sunday for the enlightenment of lawmakers set to vote on the RH bill on Aug. 7.

"To the faithful, let us hold a countdown by holding a novena until Aug. 6, the day before the voting... Let us pray so that they'll vote according to their conscience and that there won't be any pressure from the party leadership," he said. – Paolo Romero, Helen Flores, Evelyn Macairan