Triumph of Reproductive Health (RH) bill in the Philippines today---December 17, 2012---in the legislature is a decisive victory for the democratic principle seperating the church and the state! It is also a victory of common sense over dogmatism!

Family planning is pro-life, pro-women, pro-poor. The future of the Philippines is now better! Advance Merry Christmas!




(Image below sourced from likhaan.org)








(Image below is sourced from planetphilippines.com)

Congratulations to Philippine Senator Loren Legarda for supporting the pro-women, pro-life, pro-poor Reproductive Health bill today on Dec. 17, 2012! Good news for family planning!

Let us vote for and re-elect Senator Loren Legarda in 2013 for her enlightened politics; for her championing women and family issues; for her environmental, anti-poverty, small & medium-scale enterprises, disaster preparedness, peace, cultural and many other advocacies!








Sen. Loren Legarda said that the RH bill won't kill babies, but will actually protect and care for babies in the wombs of their mothers. She said in the vernacular Tagalog: "Ang RH bill ay malayo sa isang batas na kikitil sa buhay ng mga bata, bagkus ay para maalagaan sila sa sinapupunan ng ina."

Congratulations to Philippine Senator Edgardo J. Angara for supporting and voting "Yes" to the pro-life, pro-poor, pro-women and pro-progress Reproductive Health Bill today on Dec. 14, 2012!



Finally, after many years of struggle, family planning will have a chance to help women and poor families in the Philippines to have a better quality of life.

I just want to share this speech of the third-termer Senator Ed Angara, who is running for governor of Aurora province next year and whose son Congressman Sonny Angara we in the Philippines should vote for senator next year 2013.

Ed Angara photo below sourced from accralaw.com





Sonny Angara photo below sourced from philstar.com







EXPLANATION OF SENATOR EDGARDO J. ANGARA'S "YES" VOTE TO THE RH BILL

I vote “YES” to enacting the RH bill into law. It’s an affirmation of our basic human rights, especially the rights of women, and the right to reproductive health.

At the moment, we have to respond to the challenges that threaten our country:

1,000 women continue to die yearly during pregnancy and childbirth;

about 150,000 children are born from teenage mothers every year;

women who cannot support their children put them into orphanages or labor work;

we have almost 2 million orphans from 0 to 17 years of age, and about 4 million child laborers ages 5 to 17; about 9,000 Filipinos are afflicted with HIV/AIDS;

and, at 100 million, we’re the 12th most populous country in the world.

These numbers will continue to rise, if not for the enactment of the RH bill. The RH bill’s provisions on family planning information and services, emergency obstetric care, and reproductive health education intend to respond to these challenges.

We have to consider that maternal deaths due to pregnancy and childbirth are unique to women alone. Without family planning, women will continue to bear children. As they do so, they continue to be exposed to the risk of life-threatening complications. And so, they will need to have access to obstetric services. Failure to provide such services Mr. President, constitutes discrimination against women, because it is only women who face this risk of dying, once pregnant.

On top of these, the United Nations General Assembly ratified the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1979 to address these very issues. The CEDAW was agreed upon by 177 states, including the Philippines. CEDAW mandates that states should provide services that prevent maternal deaths and provide family planning information and services, among others. It has been more than 30 years since that agreement, and yet we haven’t done anything about these issues.

Today I do not just speak as a long-time advocate of public health legislation, and the principal author of PHILHEALTH Law and the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers. Today I speak as both a lawyer and a lawmaker. 

I acknowledge the grave concerns of my fellow Roman Catholics and our leaders in the clergy. I do not see anything in the RH law that forget the moral dimensions of sexual relations, which undermine the Filipino family.

In the first place, the RH bill does not legalize abortion.

Second, unwanted pregnancies are the leading cause of half a million abortions yearly.

Third, the RH bill does not impose any family planning method, but leaves the Filipino couple free to choose whichever method they want.

Finally, to withdraw from enacting the RH bill because one church opposes it is inconsistent with our constitution of the separation of the church and state. We have to consider that not all Filipinos are Catholics. While Catholics comprise 70 percent of our population, we also have Muslims, Protestants, Buddhists, non-believers, and others. Regardless of religion, it is the right of the state to enact the bill for the best interest of our nation, especially for our mothers, our wives, and our sisters and daughters.

Mr. President, today I vote as a Filipino, a lawyer, a public health advocate, a husband, father, and grandfather. I vote YES to the RH bill. May God bless our people.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Why we should all support Reproductive Health (RH) bill in the Philippines. It is pro-life, pro-women, pro-poor and pro-progress. This is not abortion, it is a lie to equate RH to abortion. In fact, RH bill can help minimize the many illegal, immoral and tragic abortions happening nationwide every year!



I am disappointed by the delaying, obstructionist and other tactics of the anti-RH politicians in our House of Representatives and the Senate in the Philippines. These are some of the reasons why we should strongly and decisively support the RH bill in the Philippines NOW:

1. RH Bill is pro-life---The United Nations, World Health Organization, the Philippines' Department of Health and others have repeatedly said that the lives and health of numerous women and children are endangered by lack of adequate informations and options regarding family planning and reproductive health needs. Let us allow people not only access to life, but better quality of life too.\

The UN Population Fund, in a separate statement, said the Philippines was unlikely to achieve its millennium development goal of reducing maternal deaths by three quarters and providing universal access to reproductive health by 2015. It said it had “extensively studied” the proposed RH law which once passed could “vastly improve health and quality of life” in a country where a third of the population live on less than a dollar a day.

(Image below from lizashut.blogspot.com)





2. RH Bill is pro-women---I strongly believe that women should have the right to control their destiny, to have options regarding reproductive health based on their individual conscience and cultural/religious beliefs. Women should have the right to choose when to give birth and how many kids they want.



3. RH Bill is pro-poor---It is tragic that majority of people in our Philippine society do not have access to reproductive health options, services and informations just because they are poor, thus we have the phenomenon of the poor becoming increasingly and almost perpetually in the bondage of economic poverty with more kids than they could support and educate.

Responsible parenthood or family planning is beneficial to all people, let us allow the RH bill to give everyone in our society equal access to reproductive health. 


(Image below from amocielo.com)






(Image below sourced from spot.ph)

Support Reproductive Health (RH) Bill & Senator Pia Cayetano! Philippine Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile shoots down move to tackle RH bill.

My Comments:

I believe the RH Bill in the Philippines is pro-women, pro-poor, pro-life and supports the needs of Philippine socio-economic development.

Let us strongly support the RH Bill and the enlightened senators such as Pia Cayetano, Miriam Defensor Santiago and others who courageously champion this legislation for family planning in the Philippines.

(Photograph of the progressive and courageous Senator Pia Cayetano from misternow.deviantart.com)




(The controversial Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, who is not supporting the much-needed RH Bill)



Here below is a disturbing news report today by GMA 7:

Enrile shoots down move by Pia Cayetano to tackle RH bill

November 13, 2012 4:29pm

 

— Kimberly Jane Tan/KBK, GMA News

 

A move to advance the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill in the Senate was immediately shot down — by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile himself — on Tuesday afternoon, further damping hopes on its immediate passage.
 
During the day's session, RH bill co-sponsor Sen. Pia Cayetano asked that the two-year-old bill be tackled for at least 30 minutes before they go on to other priority measures, like the sin tax bill and the proposed budget for 2013.
 
"I have stated before that I fully support the prioritization of the sin tax bill and the budget, but I would also like to put on record that the RH bill has been pending for almost two years and what I would like to request our colleagues is that we find time to also finish this measure," she told her colleagues on the floor.
 
The RH measure is in the period of amendments in the Senate, after which senators can vote to pass it on second reading.
 
But Cayetano said since there are only a few senators who will be seeking amendments, they would only need less than an hour to tackle the controversial measure.
 
The three senators who manifested their intention to seek amendments are Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, Senate Majority Floor Leader Vicente Sotto III, and Senator Ralph Recto.
 
Enrile, however, said Cayetano should not complain if a bill is not being tackled.
 
"I have also a bill here that has been pending for 10 years and I am waiting for it to be discussed in this chamber,” Enrile told Cayetano. “I never complained and I don't think there is anyone who can compel any senator to jump simply because they want him to jump."
 
"I'm ready to defend my position in any debate here so I hope that they will understand that I'm not ready yet to propose an amendment," he added.
 
But when Cayetano asked him when he will be ready, he said: "I do not know, madam senator, when I'm ready."
 
Upon hearing this, Cayetano said she is ready to do what it takes to pass the measure. "I think it is also my right as a sponsor to defend this bill, which a lot of people are waiting for," she said.
 
Enrile, however, said he was not afraid of what she may do.
 
"I'm ready for any remedy that the gentle lady would like to take if you want to put into a vote [or] that I be censured or be kicked out as Senate president or I be outvoted so be it," he said.