Open Letter to Bishop Vicente Navarra

I write this letter to express my sadness and deepest disappointment with the decision of the Diocese of Bacolod to launch its 'Team Patay' campaign. As a Catholic, I believe that the campaign fans the discord between the Church hierarchy and the lay members of the Church, a significant majority of whom supports the RH law. It sharpens the divide and makes dialogue more difficult, ironically in a time when the nation is moving forward now that the RH law has been enacted.

As an advocate of the RH law, however, what I find alarming is the relentless assault on the proponents and the merits of the new law based on allegations that have been refuted repeatedly with evidence. In the course of our efforts to push for the RH bill's passage, we found ourselves addressing the same issues using the only tool that we can wield: the truth, and our very own conscience.

For standing up for the RH law, we have been accused of curtailing life since contraception is equated with abortion. Nothing could be farthest from the truth than this claim, and not a single provision in the new law decriminalizes abortion. On the contrary, the truth is that the new law is an affirmation of life and human dignity. The RH law aims to stop a narrative of death and desperation for many Filipino families. If fully implemented, it will curb and eliminate maternal deaths caused by preventable pregnancy-related complications. These deaths could be curbed if mothers are given access to reproductive health services prior to pregnancy, during pregnancy, and even while raising our children.

We have also been criticized for allegedly promoting the culture of contraception, which promotes promiscuity and abortion.

The truth is, the new law will curb abortion and will promote healthy, safe, and responsible sexual behavior. The main driver of abortion is unwanted pregnancy, a result of the lack of knowledge and awareness on reproductive health and family planning. In short, it is ignorance that causes unwanted pregnancies, and if we wish to address the so-called abortion crisis in the country, we must provide Filipinos, especially the youth, with evidence-based reproductive health information and services instead of keeping them in the dark about sex and sexuality.

The fear surrounding the proposed sex and sexuality education program is likewise unfounded: it will teach our youth responsibility as they navigate their own sexuality. Indeed, opponents of the RH law wrongly attribute to education what ignorance is known to perpetrate.

Lastly, we have been branded as anti-poor because we are allegedly blaming the poor for their own poverty.

As a solo parent, I can empathize with the hopelessness that mothers or parents sometimes feel when they are raising their families. We always want to strive for a better future for our children - the best schools, decent health services, and a better fate. In many Filipino households, this aspiration is immediately crippled by unplanned births, by sick mothers, or sick babies. Such situations breed desperation, and it robs families of their chance to improve their conditions. It is not their doing that they are in these conditions; they are in fact compelled to be in these situations, because poverty is also about the lack of choice.

The RH law aims to restore that chance. It is not imposing any ideal family size to Filipino families, but it gives them the information and the tools that they need so that they themselves can decide how they are going to plan their families. The RH law doesn't blame poverty on the poor, and it doesn't claim to solve poverty on its own by reducing our population size. But it does aim to give the poor the information and services that they need so that they can exercise their own choice, according to their conscience and their own contexts.

We have been accused that our support for the RH law is meant to protect certain vested interests. To the good Bishop of Bacolod, and to other leaders of the Catholic faith, the one thing that stands between me and my support for the RH law is my own conscience, one which is also shaped by my Catholic beliefs.

Sincerely,

Risa Hontiveros