Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Part I-
INTRODUCTION
Despite the alarms and doomsday bells touched off worldwide by the crash
of the global financial system, the Philippine political system has managed
to give its undivided attention to something completely unrelated --- House
Bill 5043, otherwise known as An Act Providing For A National Policy On
Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development
And For Other Purposes. This is a consolidation of four reproductive health
(RH) bills originally filed in the House of Representatives. Six other like-
minded bills had been filed in the Senate, but are still with six committees.
They have yet to be consolidated into a single text.[2]
In this paper, we shall examine the real issues involved, and why
the bill has proved so divisive.
Thus, when some women, who had been victims of China's "one male
child policy," heard it for the first time at the 1995 Fourth World Conference
on Women in Beijing, they literally danced for joy, believing they would
finally be able to bear as many children as they wanted ---- only to be told
promptly that the phrase meant "the right not to reproduce at all."
As used in HB 5043, "reproductive health" is not concerned with the
safe, licit and natural generation and moral upbringing of any new human
being. Its main thrust is the very opposite ---- how to prevent pregnancy
and reproduction through contraception and sterilization. The bill, strictly
speaking, is an anti-reproduction bill.
There are two distinctly positive provisions, but they are not mandatory:
The proponents claim that ten (10) poor women die everyday from
complications during pregnancy or childbirth. This may or may not be
correct. If correct, experience has shown (as in Gattaran, Cagayan and
Sorsogon, Sorsogon) that the incidence of maternal death arising from such
complications could be fully mitigated and brought down to zero simply by
providing adequate basic and emergency obstetrics care and skilled medical
personnel.
1. Heart diseases, 80
2. Vascular diseases, 63
3. Cancer, 51
4. Pneumonia, 45
5. Tuberculosis,23
6. Diabetes, 22
Women (and men) suffering from these diseases do not get free
medicines or medical services from the State, with the exception of
tuberculosis where the government program has been significantly
influenced by the death of the President of the Commonwealth, Manuel L.
Quezon, from the disease. If the State, which is not a welfare state, is to
provide free medicines for the sick, should priority not be given to these
cases? Our RH politicians, however, seem solely interested in curing
childbearing with all sorts of contraceptives and sterilization devices, even
though the World Health Organization (WHO) has already determined these
to be carcinogenic (cancer-causing) to humans.
What are facts about the country's population growth? The present
population is estimated at 88 million. According to the National Statistics
Office (NSO), the population growth rate is down to 2.04%. The total
fertility rate (TFR), or the number of children a woman of reproductive age
can have in her lifetime, is down to 3.02. According to the CIA World
Factbook, 2008, however, the birth rate is down to 1.72%; the TFR down
to 3.00. The U.N. Population Division projects that by 2020 the TFR will drop
to 2.29 -- just a breath away from the replacement level of 2.1. Thereafter,
it will all be downward until the rate falls below replacement level.
A SHRINKING POPULATION?
Despite the falling birth rate and the steady toll exacted by the
leading killers on both men and women, the average Filipino today has a
lifespan of 70.8 years, longer than his counterpart of the last generation.
So the population continues to grow, at a moderate pace.
•Russia, which has increased the monthly allowance for a first baby
from 700 roubles to 1,500 roubles, and 3,000 roubles for the next
child;
•Germany, which allows a parent who stops working after the birth
of a child to claim as much as $2,375 a month for 14 months;
•Ukraine, which offers mothers about 1,000 euros for a new child;
South Korea, which offers parents $670 a month from their
employment insurance plus up to one year of unpaid leave per
parent;
NO NEED TO PANIC
They try very hard to panic the public with scare scenarios about the
country's population doubling in 30 years, and everything else getting
worse. The projection assumes that all variables will remain constant.
Which never do. Assuming the population does in fact double, then
population density would also double, from the present 290 inhabitants per
square km. to 580. That would be nearly one/thirty-third of Macau's present
density, one-thirtieth of Monaco's, and a little over one-tenth of Singapore's
and Hong Kong's. If we have not by then discovered the real causes of our
poverty, and mobilized our human and material resources accordingly, then
perhaps we would not even have a prayer. But if we could correct our
mistakes, and put good governance in place, then there is much hope. How
people conduct themselves is the critical issue, not how many they are.
CARRYING CAPACITY
There is no agreed figure on the country's (or, for that matter, the
world's) "carrying capacity" --- or just how many people it can hold or
support. Garrett Hardin sees the planet as a small lifeboat that can hold
only 100 million people; the poor should not be allowed to board or should
be thrown out into the water in a triage. The Cambridge statistician Colin
Clark, however, believes the entire world population could fit inside Texas,
with garden space left for each one.
Thus, one study suggests that if the United States with its 9,629,091
square km. were to take in the population density of Japan (339), instead of
its own 31 inhabitants per square km., it could hold about 30 billion people,
with a total GDP of at least $71 trillion.[6]
6) Hong Kong has 7,040, 885 people in a land area of 1,099 square
km., Population density: 6,407 inhabitants per square km. – the fourth
highest in the world. Overpopulated? So it seems. But given its GDP per
capita (PPP) of $42,000, the second highest in Asia, it does not mind adding
more migrant workers to its native population.
But they are not uniformly poor because of their children. They were
born poor, and have remained poor; their poverty precedes the birth of their
children. The causes of poverty lie elsewhere. There are other explanations.
DOMESTIC STATISTICS
Within the Philippines itself, official statistics (as of 2003) show that the
more densely populated regions like Calabarzon and Central Luzon have a
much lower poverty incidence than the less densely populated ones, like the
Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Caraga, and Bicol. This
does not mean that a region has to have a high population density in order
to have a lower poverty incidence. It simply means that there is no direct
correlation between the size of the population and poverty incidence. What
seems to have direct correlation is the educational qualification of the head
of the family and poverty incidence, as shown by the following table:[9]
(h/sq m)
NCR
4.8%
3,632
23.7%
CAR
25.8%
15
46.3%
I- Ilocos
24.4%
68
36.5%
19.3%
22
51.1%
13.5%
84
41.2%
IV- Calabarzon
14.5%
135
39.8%
IVB- Minatropa
39.9%
18
59.9%
V- Bicol
40.6%
54
56.8%
VI- Western Visayas
31.4%
62
48.6%
23.6%
82
52.9%
35.3%
35
59.9%
44.0%
40
59.0%
X- Northern Mindanao
37.7%
44
53.7%
XI- Davao
28.5%
41
57.3%
XII- Soccsksargen
32.1%
37
53.7%
XIII- Caraga
47.1%
22
54.2%
ARMM
45.4%
40
73.5%
CONVINCING PROOF
There can be no clearer and more convincing proof against the claim
that poverty in the Philippines is the inescapable and direct result of having
more people than some eugenicists and neo-Malthusians would care to see
around. No rich couple has suddenly become poor just because they chose
to have children. On the contrary, so many poor families lifted themselves
from poverty because of their children.
Were the birth rate to drop to zero, and half or more than half of the
country's population to evaporate into the ether, would it alter the ratio of
80% or more of the people sharing 20% or less of the nation's wealth while
20% or less of the people share 80% or more of it?
Not likely.
This implies a social order that recognizes man as its first and
ultimate resource; that allocates quality investment in the optimum
development of that resource; that measures progress not simply in terms
of material wealth but rather according to its moral, cultural and spiritual
development and its common conception of justice.
The age structure of our population reveals our real strength. Its
median age is 23 years, younger than that of 139 other countries,[10] and
older than that of 73 others.[11] This means that while those older ones
are phasing out of the workforce, and those younger ones are not yet ready
to join it, our workers are already at their most productive. Assuming the
average worker is retired at 65, this means the average Filipino worker has
42 productive years more to go as against the Chinese worker's 31.4 years,
the American's 28.3 years, the Singaporean's 26.6 years, the Canadian's
24.9 years, and the Japanese's 21.2 years.
HUMAN CAPITAL
They believe the most horrid things about population control could
still be hidden under deceitfully enticing language. It is the dark side of
Wittgenstein's "meaning is use," of Heidegger's "language is the house of
Being." It is "verbal engineering" in pursuit of an ideological agenda, the
result of which is what some people call "U.N.-speak", the U.N. version of
George Orwell's "Newspeak" (in the novel Nineteen Eighty Four) in which
the Ministry of War is called the "Ministry of Peace."
They may not even be fully aware of the real inspiration behind their
proposals, which appear to have been drafted not by them or their staff, but
by the technical staff of the "Philippine Legislators' Committee on
Population and Development" (PLCPD), a foreign-funded pressure group.
EARLIEST BEGINNINGS
MALTHUS
GALTON
COMPULSORY STERILIZATION
Such was the influence of eugenics that in 1907 the state of Indiana
passed the world's first compulsory sterilization law, aimed at "confirmed
criminals, idiots, rapists, and imbeciles." Thirty states and Puerto Rico soon
followed, using a model law that would eventually influence the Nazi
compulsory sterilization laws.[19]
SANGER
One of the most highly driven eugenicists at this time was Margaret
Sanger (1883-1966), owner of the magazine Birth Control Review and
founder of the American Birth Control League, which later became Planned
Parenthood, from which in turn sprung International Planned Parenthood
Federation (IPPF), the world's biggest supplier of abortion. Her project was
to create "a race of thoroughbreds" and attracted the support of names of
great wealth like Rockefeller, Duke, Scaife, Lasker, Sulzberger and
Dupont.[21] In 1932, through her magazine, Sanger called for "a stern and
rigid policy of sterilization and segregation of those persons already tainted
by their heredity." She proposed that those individuals be paid to get
sterilized, but those who refused should be sent to farmlands and
homesteads and taught how to work by competent instructors. An
estimated fifteen to twenty million Americans suffered from this.[22]
HITLER
In 1946, Sir Julian Huxley, the English biologist whose father Thomas
Huxley, also a biologist, had coined the word "agnostic," was made head of
UNESCO. He who was known to favor the sterilization of the mentally
handicapped and "those society doesn't know what to do with."[25]
In the early 1960s Burch and his friends launched the "Campaign To
Check The Population Explosion, " based on the theory of a "population
bomb." In 1954, "The Population Bomb" appeared as a pamphlet written by
Hugh Moore of the Dixie Cup fortune, and circulated first among one
thousand leaders in business and the professions and subsequently to a
million and a half others. Moore also gave the young entomologist from
Philadelphia, Paul Ralph Erlich, permission to use The Population Bomb for
the title of his book, which would appear in 1968. This book introduced its
doomsday scare with the opening lines: "The battle to feed humanity is
over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines---hundreds of millions of
people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs
embarked upon now."
HUMANAE VITAE
That same year Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae, his encyclical on
the regulation of birth. It declared that:
•"the man" will lose respect for "the woman" and "no longer care for
her physical and psychological equilibrium" and will come to "the
point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment,
and no longer as his respected and beloved companion;
•lead man to think that he had limitless dominion over his own body.
Hugh Moore and his group got the wealthiest patrons to support their
anti-natalist campaign. They blamed population growth for the degradation
of the environment; and for Earth Day in 1970, they launched a slogan
contest among students on over 200 campuses where the winner was,
"People Pollute."[26] It sounded like a quote from the founder of Earth
First! Dave Foreman himself who said, "We humans have become a disease,
the Humanpox."
But the most important part of the work of Moore's group was to get
the United States government actively involved in population control. And
succeed they did.
POPULATION CZAR
In 1966, the Office of Population was created within the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) and a doctor named Reimert
Thorolf Ravenholt became its first director. He became the "Population
Czar."
He handed out business cards printed on condoms, and for the U.S.
bicentennial celebration in 1976 he thought of producing stars and stripes
condoms in red, white and blue colors, for worldwide distribution.
Ravenholt flooded the developing world with condoms, birth control pills,
and other contraceptives through a network that linked his office with IPPF,
the Population Council, and the Association for Voluntary Sterilization
(AVS), now known as Engender Health. [28]
ABORTION IS LEGALIZED
NSSM 200
LDCS THREAT
The study saw that if the population of the 13 and other LDCs
continued to grow, after the population of the United States and the First
World had stabilized, the developing countries would end up using their
own natural resources, to the utter deprivation of the First World. It also
saw that if the developing countries acquired the technology of the First
World, a reversal of roles could follow---today's masters would become
tomorrow's slaves. It also saw that the arrival of every new population
carried in its train potentially destabilizing values.
This prompted the U.S. to launch its World Population Plan of Action
"to achieve (worldwide) a replacement level (a two-child family on the
average) by about the year 2000."
The Report urged the U.S. President and the Secretary of State to
"treat the subject of population growth control as a matter of paramount
importance and address it specifically in their regular contacts with leaders
of other governments, particularly LDCs."
The Report urged them to "encourage LDC leaders to take the lead in
advancing family planning and population stabilization both within
multilateral organizations and through bilateral contacts with the LDCs."
However, the Report cautioned the U.S. government "not to give the
appearance to the LDCs of an industrialized country policy directed against
the LDCs…Third World leaders should be in the forefront and obtain the
credit for successful programs," the Report said.
The Report assigned a special role to the mass media and satellite
communications technology, particularly in dealing with "large and illiterate
rural communities." This is reflected in the disproportionate time and space
devoted by media to population control, using individuals who may not
always understand what they are talking about.
MASSIVE FUNDS
ABORTION NECESSARY?
A PERSONAL NARRATIVE
That was the first time I saw the menacing presence of the
population control lobby.
DIPLOMATIC PRESSURE
In the runup to the Cairo conference, I saw the menace again. The
Senate had just been reorganized, but the Committee on Women had been
left headless, None of the three women-senators---Macagapagal Arroyo,
Shahani, Coseteng---had wanted to chair it. Nobody else wanted it. The
Senate President asked me to chair it temporarily so it could at least
operate. I was not interested in the committee, but I could not turn down
the Senate President. As soon as I accepted, demonstrations erupted
outside the Senate, asking me to drop the committee. The gender feminists
feared the job would give me a ticket to Cairo, where I could speak against
the radical feminists' "right to abortion." When I refused to budge, they
unseated the Senate President so that in the ensuing revamp I lost the
committee to Sen. Shahani. Shut out of the official ICPD delegation, I had to
go to Cairo as a guest of the Egyptian Parliament.
PRESSURE IN STRASBOURG
"I'm sorry," I said, "we are more than 70 million now, but not
everyone has a large family like me. I'm one of the few who have seven
children."
"C'est vrai, c'est vrai," he said, "in many parts of Paris today, you find
so many Arabs who refuse to speak French."
"Well, I think it simply shows the problem is yours rather than mine,"
I said. "In my country, we still produce Filipinos, not migrants."
PRESSURE IN BONN
As for human rights, I told them Asians thought it's the Europeans
and Americans who were practicing double standards. How, for instance,
could they readily denounce "genital mutilation" in Africa while proclaiming
fetal mutilation as a woman's right in Europe and America?
ILLEGAL PRESENCE?
Why foreign agent? Because foreign agent is "any person who acts or
agrees to act as political consultant, public relations counsel, publicity
agent, information representative, or as agent, servant, representative or
attorney for a foreign principal or any domestic organization subsidized
directly or indirectly in whole or in part by a foreign principal."
But what PLCPD is doing goes far beyond the legitimate activity
contemplated in BP 39. It constitutes actual interference in legislation,
which should be abjured and penalized by Congress.
LGUS AS CONDUITS
Moving on a parallel track but faster than the bills in Congress are
anti-reproduction ordinances. These are being pushed with exceptional zeal
by the same foreign lobby through the local councils. They are clearly
unconstitutional as HB 5043 is unconstitutional, and additionally because
the ordinance-making power of local councils is limited to local matters
within their respective jurisdictions and competence.
The first council to succumb was that of Olongapo City, which passed
the unconstitutional ordinance without any serious public consultations,
publicity or debate. Many other cities and provincial governments have
since tried to follow suit.[35]
BLINDSIDED NATIONALISTS
Not far behind are free market economists who ordinarily like to talk
of "liberalization, privatization and deregulation" but who appear ready to
discard their basic philosophical orientation in order to do central economy
planning, the ideological opposite of what they profess, except that the
subject of their central planning is not just the economy, but rather the
private lives of the Filipino poor.
A LESSON MISSED
Reading the texts of the 14 "professors" makes one wish they had
been listening when Pope Benedict XVI met with Catholic educators at the
Catholic University of America on April 17, 2008. There he said, among
other things, the following:
The wonder of it all is that, given the way they have "fixed" the
questions, the pollsters have failed to report a 100-% endorsement of the
highly unconstitutional bill.
Part II-
3. It is unnecessary;
4. It is technically defective.
NO MORAL BASIS
Every just law has a moral basis. For that reason, we cannot discuss
the validity of HB 5043 without first taking into account the moral principles
concerning marriage and the marital act, upon which the bill impinge.
Marriage is the permanent and exclusive union of one man and one
woman for the procreation and rearing of children. The marital act
completes and perfects that union. The conjugal act is physical, but it is a
love experience rather than a mere physical one. Although invested with so
much pleasure, it is not a mere exchange of sensation or pleasure, but the
deepest 'knowing' of one's self by the other, of one's union with the other.
The spouses do not merely bind themselves; rather they give themselves---
their seed --- to each other; they thereby share with each other the highest
power within their nature, to become the means of transmitting new life
from the Creator. The conjugal act itself is short and transient, but its
significance is lasting. Through this gift of self to each other, husband and
wife attain the fulness of their sexuality and are raised from mere subjects
of the Divine Maker to working partners in the noblest enterprise of giving
life to a new human being. The decision to make the conjugal union fruitful
belongs solely to the Creator, but this fruit will not come about without the
couple's cooperation. The separation of the procreative aspect of the sexual
act from its unitive aspect, through contraception or sterilization, destroys
any opportunity for the union to be fruitful. It destroys fertility, and this
reduces the marital union into a mere exchange of physical sensations. The
act of procreation becomes mere recreation; the love duet is reduced into
something lower than a pantomime. [38]
For this reason, it is not licit for the spouses to deprive the marital act
of its procreative aspect. Since it is the Creator who decides whether a
conjugal act will bear fruit, the creature's duty is to submit. There is no
justification whatsoever for the creature usurping the Creator's authority
and power.
This does not mean that married couples have a duty to breed like
rabbits, or even to have sexual intercourse at all times, whatever their
physical condition or the possible consequences. Precisely man is gifted
with intellect and will so he can control his appetites and concupiscence;
and woman has only a week-long period of fertility every month for
childbearing. This allows couples to reserve marital intercourse during the
wife's infertile period, without having to reinvent the morality of the sexual
act.
This matter is strictly within the domain of moral law, and completely
outside the scope of State legislation. Why? Because this involves rights
and duties that precede the existence of the State and transcend the rights
and duties of citizenship. The State has the right to define the duties of the
citizen and the duty to recognize his rights. It may tax him to its heart's
content, expropriate his most valued piece of land for public use, and send
him to war in defense of the flag. But it may not tell him how to live the
truth of his personhood or how to manage his personal relationship with
God.
In the same manner that the State may not tell a citizen how to
think, how to feel, how to worship, how to hope, how to believe, it may not
tell him how to love, and be loved, how to embrace his wife, or father her
child. The State may neither promote nor prohibit the private use of
contraceptives, without violating the absolute privacy of the most intimate
aspect of a couple's family life. This is the clearest reason why the State
cannot be a party to a program of contraception and sterilization.
PATENTLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
The Constitution is the basic law of the land. Congress cannot pass
any law that is in conflict with the Constitution. HB 5043 is totally in
conflict with the Constitution.
In such a state, the government does not plan the citizens' private
lives. No organ of the State enters the bedroom to tell married couples
how to make love.
3. Sec. 10. "The State shall promote social justice in all phases of
national development."
4. Sec. 11: "The State values the dignity of every human person
and guarantees full respect for human rights."
5. Sec. 12: "The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and
shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous and
social institution. It shall equally protect the life of the mother and
the life of the unborn from conception. The natural and primary
right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic
efficiency and the development of moral character shall receive the
support of the Government."
6. Sec. 13: "The State recognizes the vital role of the youth in
nation-building and shall promote and protect their physical, moral,
spiritual, intellectual, and social wellbeing. It shall inculcate in the
youth patriotism and nationalism, and encourage their involvement
in public and civic affairs.
Is this not yet another restatement of the policy on reproductive
health and population development?
7. Sec. 14: "The State shall recognize the role of women in nation-
building, and shall ensure the fundamental equality before the law
of women and men."
8. Sec. 15. "The State shall protect and promote the right to health
of the people and instill health consciousness among them."
What else is this if not a clear constitutional policy on the total health
of men and women, and population development?
9. Sec. 16. "The State shall protect and advance the right of the
people to a balanced and healthful ecology in accord with the
rhythm and harmony of nature."
Is this not a clear constitutional mandate for the total liberation and
development of our people from the insidious dictates of racial imperialist
forces who want to dictate the conduct of our most intimate personal lives
as a people?
If these are not sufficient, will it help to read the whole of Article XV
entitled The Family? It provides:
"16. The protection of the family and of the child remains the concern
of the international community. Parents have a basic human right to
determine freely and responsibly the number and the spacing of their
children."
That's all that's needed to seal the coffin and lower HB 5043 to its
grave.
He recognizes that the State shall "equally protect the life of the
mother and the life of the unborn from conception." So he is determined
that the State not harm any fetus that has already implanted upon the
mother's womb, for that would be abortion. But the bill is determined that
the State, through contraception and sterilization, prevent any fetus from
reaching implantation stage, which to the author is the beginning of
conception.
QUALIFIED GENOCIDE
There exists a very real danger that, with sufficient coercion, a State
program of contraception and sterilization could succeed well beyond the
proponents' expectations. That could render the government criminally
liable under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide
of Dec. 9, 1948.
In this case the poor constitute the target group; it is to prevent their
continued reproduction that the proponents have filed their bill. They want
to cure poverty by eliminating the poor.
COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY
According to the proponents, they want the bill passed because they want
women to have free access to all contraceptives and sterilization devices.
This is less than honest.
What they purportedly want to give our women, our women already
have. They have long appropriated it for themselves without having to get
any permission from the Church or the State.
In 1976, while I was in the Cabinet, my wife gave birth to our fourth
child in a well-known hospital. As I prepared to go near my wife, a nurse
presented me with a form to sign. I asked what it was, and she said it was
a consent form for my wife's tubal ligation. I blew my top and spoke to the
hospital chief. There I learned that the DOH was paying nurses for every
tubal ligation.
At the 1994 ICPD in Cairo, then DOH Secretary Johnny Flavier, as chief
Philippine delegate to the conference, overwhelmed his audience of NGOs
when he told them how he had been able to distribute tons and tons of
condoms and pills throughout the country just by piggy-backing on CARE,
while it was distributing food relief. He became a bigger hero to his
audience when he told them that he had found a very effective way of
dealing with priests and clerics---make them mad by making fun of them.
And the program simply continued from one DOH Secretary to another.
The only thing that has probably changed is the ratio of funds coming
from the foreign population controllers as against those being squeezed out
of the national government. This year's P2 billion for reproductive health
and family planning in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) is quite a hefty
sum; the proposed P3.4 billion for 2009 is even heftier.
TECHNICALLY DEFECTIVE
We have thus far shown that HB 5043 is unnecessary and lacks any
moral and constitutional leg to stand on. There may be no real need to
discuss its flawed provisions. But just to complete the analysis, we shall
proceed to examine the technical aspects of the bill.
WHERE DID THE BILLS COME FROM?
They are, in fact, casually and openly attributed to the technical staff
of the PLCPD, mentioned earlier. PLCPD is not a formal creation of
Congress, but "a non-stock, non-profit foundation dedicated to the
formulation of viable public policies requiring legislation on population
management and socio-economic development."
WERE THE CONSTITUTION AND THE RULES OF THE HOUSE FOLLOWED IN HEARING THE BILL?
The lack of sufficient hearing was brought to the attention of the Speaker of
the House and the Chairman of the Committee on Rules and Majority Leader
in a letter dated June 2, 2008 by Most Rev. Angel Lagdameo, Archbishop of
Jaro, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP)
and Most Rev. Paciano Aniceto, Archbishop of San Fernando, Pampanga and
chairman of the CBCP Commission on Family and Life.
That letter was never answered despite the clear provision of Sec. 5 (a) of
Republic Act 6713, otherwise known as the Code of Conduct and Ethical
Standards for Public Officials and Employees, requiring the officials
concerned to reply to that communication and inform the authors thereof of
the action taken relative to their complaint "within fifteen (15) working
days from receipt thereof." Violation of the law carries a penalty of a fine
not exceeding the equivalent of six months' salary or suspension from office
not exceeding one year or outright removal, depending on the gravity of the
offence.
The author of the bill has since explained that HB 5043 had been filed
and heard in several previous congresses, which had however failed to
enact it into law. Assuming that to be true, it still does not comply with the
constitutional requirement. Every bill that fails to get enacted during a
particular Congress dies at the end of that Congress, and if filed again in the
next Congress, must start all over again as though it had never been filed
before.
So much for the procedural question. Let us look at the major proposals:
•While the law on abortion and prostitution stands, the bill talks of
managing post-abortion complications and treating and counseling
those who have undergone an abortion in "a humane, non-
judgmental and compassionate manner," without any obligation on
the part of the health provider to determine whether the abortion was
spontaneous or induced, and to report to the police any indication of
a crime.
•A health delivery van for every congressional district does not need
any special legislation; it could be provided for under the Congress'
generous pork barrel system.
However, if the House wants to salvage the awesome effort that has
been expended in trying to pass a highly unconstitutional bill, it could at
this point consider replacing HB 5043 with a morally and constitutionally
sound bill which could propose the following:
2. That the State neither prohibit nor promote any specific family
planning method, but make sure that only such methods which are
safe, legal and not contrary to publilc morals be used by duly licensed
health providers;
By Francisco S. Tatad
http//:franciscotatad.blogspot.com
25 October 2008
[1] This is a revised and updated version of the article which first appeared in
September 2008 under the title, "The Truth and Half-Truths About Reproductive
Health." The new title takes off from "Human Rights and Reproductive Wrongs," the
title of a chapter in Steven Mosher's book, Population Control, Transaction
Publishers, New Brunswick, US, and London, 2008
The Senate bills include: SBN 40, An Act Providing for Reproductive Health Care
Structures and Appropriating Funds Therefor; SBN 43, An Act Creating a
Reproductive Health and Population Management Council for the Implementation of
an Integrated Policy on Reproductive Health Relative to Sustainable Human
Development and Population Management and for Other Purposes; SBN 187, An Act
Establishing an Integrated Population and Development Policy, Strengthening Its
Implementing Mechanisms and for Other Purposes; SBN 622, An Act to Protect the
Right of the People to Information About Reproductive Health Care Services; SBN
1258, An Act Granting Women the Right to Know Work Conditions Affecting their
Health; SBN 1299, An Act to Protect the Right of the People to Information about
Reproductive Health Care Services.
[3] Michael Schooyans, Birth Control and Demographic Imposion, in Lexicon, Human
Life International, Front Royal, Virginia, 2006
[4] Gerard-Francois Dumont, Les evolutions demographiques dans le monde, Paper
read at Pastoral and Theological Congress, World Meeting of Families, Valencia,
Spain, July 2006
[5] Cited in Michael Schooyans's Birth Control and Demographic Implosion, Lexicon,
Human Life International, Front Royal Virginia, 2006
[6] Estimates are based on monetary values before the 2008 breakdown of the
global financial-monetary system.
[7] These include American Samoa, Aruba, Bahrain, Barbados, Belgium, Bermuda, El
Salvador, Gibraltar, Guam, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Lebanon, Macau,
Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Mayotte (France), Monaco, Nauru, Netherlands,
Netherlands Antilles, Puerto Rico, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines,San
Marino, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Virgin Islands (US)
[8] These include Afghanistan, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia,
Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the
Congo, Cote D'Ivoire, Djbouti, Gambia, Gaza Strip, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau,
Guyana, Kenya, Kosovo, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lesotho, Liberia,
Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal,
Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Saint Helena (UK), Sao
Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan,
Tajikistan, Tanzania, Timor Leste, Togo, Tokelau (NZ), Uganda, Zambia,
Zimbabwe
[10] Among the rich countries, Monaco has the highest median age, 45.5 years, the
United States the lowest, 36.7 years. Japan has 43.8 years; Germany, 43.4; Italy,
42.9; Finland, 41.8; Sweden, 41.3; Spain, 40.7; Demark, 40.3; Canada, 40.1;
Netherlands, 40; United Kingdom, 39.9; France, 39.2; Norway, 39; Singapore, 38.4.
China, the world's fastest growing economy, has 33.6.
[11] Illustrative are Uganda with 15 years; Mali, 15.8; Democratic Republic of the
Congo, 16.3; Sao Tome and Principe, 16.3; Chad, 16.4; Niger, 16.4; Yemen, 16.7;
Zambia, 16.9; Mozambique, 17.4; Somalia, 17.5; Sierra Leone, 17.5; Tanzania,
17.8; Swaziland, 18; Togo, 18.6; Rwanda, 18.7; Nigeria, 18.7; Sudan, 18.9; Oman,
18.9
[13] Gary Becker, Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special
Reference to Education, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1993 3rd ed
[14] Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource, Princeton University Press, 1998 Revised
[15] Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There,
Macmillan, London, 1872, p. 124
[16] Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principles of Population, as quoted by
Jacqueline Kazun, The War Against Population, Revised and Updated Edition, Ignatius
Press, San Francisco, 1999
[17] Kazun, The War Against Population, quoting Galton, Karl Pearson and Allan
Chase
[18] Ibid
[19] Ibid
[20] Ibid,
[21] Steven Mosher, Population Control: Real Costs, Illusory Benefits, Transaction
Publishers, New Brunswick, US, and London, 2008
[23] Ibid
[25] Schooyans, Birth Control and Demographic Implosion in Lexicon, Human Life
International, Front Royal, Virginia, 2006
[27] Ibid
[28] Ibid
[29] Ibid
[30] Ibid
[31] This writer first stumbled into the contents of this secret document and gave an
interview to a U.S publication and a radio program, long before it was officially
declassified.
[33] CEDAW stands for the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women.
[34] These include Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Eritrea, Ethiopia,
France, Ghana, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya,
Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico,
Moldova, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama,
Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent & the
Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Suriname, Sweden, Syria, Togo,
Turkey, United Kingdom, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Zimbabwe
[35] These include Quezon City, Antipolo, and General Santos; the provinces of
Aurora, Ifugao, Mountain Province, Sulu and Lanao del Sur; the municipalities of
Tinoc, Sagada, Lagawe, Asipulo, Bontoc and Paracelis in Luzon; Talibon, Ubay and
Carmen in Bohol, Llorente and Maydolong in Eastern Samar, Lebak and Kapatagan in
Mindanao.
[36] John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, The Belknap Press of Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass, 1999
[37] Burke, Cormac, Authority and Freedom in the Church, Four Courts Press,
Dublin, 1988
[38] Cf. Cormac Burke, Marriage and Contraception, in Why Humanae Vitae Was
Right, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1993
[39] Butterworths Medical Dictionary, 2nd ed; Gould Medical Dictionary, 4th ed;
Stedman's Medical Dictionary, 26th ed; Harrup's Dictionary of Medicine and Health;
Mellon's Illustrated Medical Dictionary; Oxford Concise Medical Dictionary; Pearce
Medical and Nursing Dictionary and Encyclopedia.