Cebu Daily News / Visayas

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Church to ask NegOr solons to spell out stand on RH bill Cebu Daily News Posted date: September 08, 2008 DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines — The Catholic Church here will ask the three congressmen of Negros Oriental to make a clear stand on the proposed Reproductive Health (RH) bill that is due for plenary debate next week at the House of Representatives. Fr. Gamaliel Tulabing, judicial vicar of the Diocese of Dumaguete, noted that the three representatives of the province were still undecided on the bill, which seeks, among others, to make artificial contraceptives available in government health centers and to require sex education for students from Grade 5 to fourth year high school. “I have personally heard Congressmen [Henry Pryde] Teves and [George] Arnaiz say that they should not go against the stand of the bishops. They said they will still have to determine whether this law is equivalent to abortion,” Tulabing said. Teves represents the third district of the province while Arnaiz, a former governor of Negros Oriental, is the representative of the second district. The first district is represented by Jocelyn Limkaichong. The bill needs 116 votes, or 50 percent plus one of the 230 representatives, to be passed. Albay Representative Edcel Lagman, the leading campaigner for the bill, had earlier told reporters in Manila that 69 congressmen now officially support the RH bill and they are optimistic about gathering enough support. The Church opposes the bill, branding it as anti-life, anti-family, anti-faith and anti-religion. “It is our obligation as pastors of God's flock to tell the people the truth. The problem is if this bill becomes a law, they will disallow us [from telling the truth], or put us in jail and ask us to pay P50,000,” Tulabing said in a forum here Thursday. He did not say where he got that information. In the same forum, Dr. Rene Bullecer, executive director of AIDS-Free Philippines, said the proponents of the RH bill were always using the line that the Philippines was overpopulated. "The Philippines is not, was not and never will be overpopulated." But the problem, he said, is that 99 percent of Filipinos believe it is. He said a growing population actually feeds the economy because they become the market for goods and services. He said the Philippines has a perfect demographic profile with a median age of 22. As they get older, they get fewer. As they get fewer, more children are born to replace them, he said. "In other countries, they have more older people than younger people, so much so that they could be afraid that Filipinos will, one day, populate the earth," Bullecer said. The problems facing the Philippines today, he said, are uncontrolled urban migration and poverty; and "poverty is an economic problem that needs an economic solution." Bullecer claimed the RH bill was not written by a Filipino congressman because the same bill, word for word, had previously been introduced in El Salvador, Columbia, Bolivia and Guatemala. But Bullecer said the Catholic Church needs to do a lot more to oppose the RH bill, noting the silence of many bishops, especially in Luzon. “On a scale of five, the Catholic Church has only done a two,” he said. /Inquirer