EDITORIAL - Where’s the law vs epal?

(The Philippine Star)

April 10, 2024 - 12:00am

With a year to go before the midterm elections, public spaces are again being littered with
billboards, posters and streamers of politicians, bearing messages to the public using any
flimsy excuse, such as greetings on little known occasions, or even advising motorists to
drive carefully. In some areas, incumbent officials together with their families have their
massive billboards greeting the public a merry Christmas, which are never taken down
throughout the year.

The most brazen are those who are in office, who plaster their faces and names on the walls
of government buildings and public schools and display their streamers and billboards of all
sizes on electric posts and trees. There are still billboards on display of politicians thanking
the public for their election two years ago.

During the campaign period, it is prohibited to display campaign materials on trees,

lampposts or any spot outside common poster areas designated by the Commission on
Elections. Such materials may be displayed on private property with the consent of the owner.

But why should the prohibition not be valid outside the campaign period? Trees are damaged
by such materials. Private citizens pay considerable amounts to display any material in public
spaces, and the allowed display areas are strictly regulated by the local government unit or
barangay, which collects advertising fees. Why should government officials be exempted
from such fees and restrictions?

The Comelec has said it has no jurisdiction over such displays outside the campaign period.
Some other national agency should step in, to enforce laws against littering and on
environmental protection.

Lawmakers can also pass an expanded law against epal, to include a specific prohibition
against such displays of self-promoting materials. Probably because lawmakers themselves
and their relatives are among those who feel entitled to display such materials, the proposed
epal law has languished in Congress since the late senator Miriam Defensor Santiago pushed
for it.

The 2021 General Appropriations Act included a provision against epal or those using
government resources and programs for self-promotion. As the Anti-Red Tape Authority
warned at the time, the provision prohibited both elected and appointed government officials
from placing their names and photos on documents like permits and licenses and other
services or goods, or taking undue credit for programs and projects funded under the GAA.

This ban should be institutionalized and expanded to include posters, streamers and
billboards of politicians in public spaces. Apart from leveling the political playing field, it
will reduce pollution of such public spaces.
Why France chose to enshrine abortion in its Constitution
By Marie Fontanel(The Philippine Star)
April 11, 2024 - 12:00am

It’s April... but we still need to talk about women’s rights! March, traditionally known as
Women’s Month, has come and gone, but the advocacy work doesn’t stop. Every day of the
year, as part of its feminist diplomacy, France continues its resolute action in favor of
women’s rights, including sexual and reproductive rights.

I always heard my mother tell her daughters that the pill was the greatest feminist revolution,
allowing women to choose freely if and when they wanted to have a child. Access to
contraception is clearly the priority of our public health policy. Yet there are still cases of
unwanted pregnancy. In such cases, the recourse may be the voluntary termination of
pregnancy. Whether this recourse is legal or not, women often make this choice. It’s a reality
that Simone Veil, the French Health Minister, described in November 1974 when she
presented the bill decriminalizing abortion in France to the National Assembly, in words that
still resonate strongly today:

“I say this with all my conviction: abortion must remain the exception, the last resort for
situations where there is no way out (...) No woman resorts to abortion out of the goodness of
her heart, you just have to listen to women. It’s always a tragedy, it will always be a tragedy.”
But authorizing it in order to better control it had become a necessary measure in the name of
freedom, equality and women’s health.

Fifty years after this bill, on March 8, 2024, France became the first country in the world to
enshrine the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy in its Constitution. This is a major
political milestone and an opportunity for me to look back over the years of feminist struggle
in France to recognize women’s right to choose. The Bobigny trial was the high point of this
battle.

In November 1971, Marie-Claire Chevalier, 16, was raped by one of her friends. Daniel, 18,
takes Marie-Claire home on the pretext of organizing a party and rapes her, threatening her
with a pair of scissors.

As a result of this coerced intercourse, Marie-Claire became pregnant. It was “unimaginable”

for her to have a child, let alone one born of rape. She confided in her mother, Michèle
Chevalier, a working mum who had raised her three daughters alone.

The two women were from modest backgrounds and had no money to go abroad for an
abortion, as wealthy women did. At the time, women who couldn’t afford this luxury used
other, much riskier methods: toxic products, knitting needles or catheters... Michèle and three
other women, known at the time as “angel makers,” helped Marie-Claire to have an abortion.

She suffered a hemorrhage and was hospitalized. She managed to recover. But her rapist
reported her to the police and she was prosecuted in the juvenile court. Her mother and the
women who helped her were summoned to court for a second trial. They faced up to five
years in prison and a fine of 10,000 francs.

The case became political when Michèle Chevalier asked Attorney Gisèle Halimi, a defender
of women’s causes, to represent them; the lawyer chose to make it a symbolic trial to put an
end to a law that criminalized abortion and endangered the lives of women who performed it
clandestinely.

This story had a happy ending: Michèle and Marie-Claire Chevalier were acquitted and three
years later, in 1975, the law legalizing voluntary termination of pregnancy was passed in
France.

How many other similar stories have tragic endings around the world today?

According to the World Health Organization, between 39,000 and 47,000 women die every
year as a result of unsafe abortion. Unsafe abortion is one of the main causes of maternal
death and the only one that can be prevented.

Health professionals and NGO workers tell of lives shattered and destroyed by an unwanted
pregnancy. There are teenage girls who want to continue their studies, women who have been
raped, others who thought they had reached menopause. They ingest chemicals and mutilate
their belly, determined to have an abortion whatever the cost. It is this legitimate desire to
control one’s own destiny that leads to these desperate acts, the physical and psychological
consequences of which are well known: infections, hemorrhaging, infertility, damage to the
genital system, when the outcome is not fatal.

At least 40 percent of the world’s women live in countries with restrictive abortion
legislation, where the tragedies continue.

By taking this symbolic step, France is guaranteeing a fundamental human right, and
irrevocably protecting the freedoms and health of women who have recourse to abortion. It is
also a signal that France is sending out to women and girls around the world in an
international context where their fundamental rights, although taken for granted, are suffering
backlash. Throughout the world, women’s freedoms are being eroded.

For France, the next step will be to promote the inclusion of abortion in the European Union’s
Charter of Fundamental Rights. This will give rise to debate, as was the case last year in
France. But it is the very essence of democracy to be able to discuss all subjects, even the
most sensitive ones.