LEGAL ENGLISH

R.H. BILL: THE CURE IT ALL PILL

A POSITION PAPER ON THE REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH BILL

BY: DEXTER G. BATALAO

LLB-1 SECTION A

BRIEF HISTORY: According to the Senate Policy Brief titled Promoting Reproductive Health, the history of reproductive health in the Philippines dates back to 1967 when leaders of 12 countries including the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos signed the Declaration on Population. The Philippines agreed that the population problem be considered as the principal element for long-term economic development. Thus, the Population Commission (Popcom) was created to push for a lower family size norm and provide information and services to lower fertility rates. Starting 1967, the USAID started shouldering 80% of the total family planning commodities (contraceptives) of the country, which amounted to US$ 3 Million annually.US National Security Memorandum: paramount importance of world population control through programs of UN and USAID. In 1975, the United States adopted as its policy the National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM200). The policy gives "paramount importance" to population control measures and the promotion of contraception among 13 populous countries, including the Philippines to control rapid population growth which they deem to be inimical to the socio-political and economic growth of these countries and to the national interests of the United States, since the "U.S. economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad", and these countries can produce destabilizing opposition forces against the United States. It recommends the US leadership to "influence national leaders" and that "improved world-wide support for population-

related efforts should be sought through increased emphasis on mass media and other population education and motivation programs by the U.N., USIA, and USAID." Different presidents had different points of emphasis. President Marcos pushed for a systematic distribution of contraceptives all over the country, a policy that was called "coercive," by its leading administrator. The Cory Aquino administration focused on giving couples the right to have the number of children they prefer, while the Ramos presidency shifted from population control to population management. Estrada used mixed methods of reducing fertility rates, while Arroyo focused on mainstreaming natural family planning, while stating that contraceptives are openly sold in the country. In 1989, the Philippine Legislators Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD) was established, "dedicated to the formulation of viable public policies requiring legislation on population management and socio-economic development." In 2000, the Philippines signed the Millennium Declaration and committed to attain the MDG goals by 2015, including promoting gender equality and health. In 2003, USAID started its phase out of a 33 year old program by which free contraceptives where given to the country. Aid recipients such as the Philippines faced the challenge to fund its own contraception program. In 2004, the Department of Health introduced the Philippines Contraceptive Self-Reliance Strategy, arranging for the replacement of these donations with domestically provided contraceptives.

BACKGROUND:

The first time the Reproductive Health Bill was proposed was in 1998. During the present 15th Congress, the RH Bills filed are those authored by: (1) House Minority Leader EdcelLagman of Albay, HB 96; (2) Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin, HB 101, (3) Akbayan Representatives Kaka Bag-ao& Walden Bello; HB 513, (4) Muntinlupa Representative Rodolfo Biazon, HB 1160, (5) Iloilo Representative Augusto Syjuco, HB 1520, (6) Gabriela Rep. LuzvimindaIlagan. In the Senate, Sen. Michael Angelo F. Perolina has filed her own version of the RH bill which, she says, will be part of the countrys commitment to international covenants. On January 31, 2011, the House of Representatives Committee on Population and Family Relations voted to consolidate all House versions of the bill, which is entitled An Act Providing for a Comprehensive Policy on Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population Development and for Other Purposes.

INTRODUCTION:

The State values the dignity of every human person and guarantees full respect for human rights (Art. II, Section 11). The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception (Art. II, Section 12). I begin by citing the Philippine Constitution. I do so because I intend to write on the basis of the fundamental ideals and aspirations of the Filipino people and not on the basis of specifically Catholic religious teachings. We are at a crossroads as a nation. Before us are several versions of a proposed bill, the Reproductive Health bill or sanitized as a Responsible Parenthood bill. This proposed bill in all its versions calls us to make a moral choice: to choose life or to choose death. In this position paper I will discuss the Constitutionality and the Necessity of the Reproductive Health Bill which in my view is unconstitutional and unnecessary. To be precise and understandable I divided the discussion into two parts concerning the main issue, namely Constitutionality and Necessity. The first part of this position paper will focus on the constitutionality of the R.H. Bill; the second part will delve into the supposed importance, urgency and necessity of this bill.

CONSTITUTIONALITY:

The Constitution says that the State shall protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception (Section 12 Article II). To show that it complies with this policy, the RH bill expressly declares that it does not legalize abortion but on the contrary aims to prevent abortion by making family planning information widely accessible. According to the sponsors, if people are well informed in family planning methods, abortion is lowest. So in its proposed family planning program, the bill would make available to couples and individuals a full range of family planning methods allegedly to enable them to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information and means to carry out their decisions. The problem however is that the bill opens a full range of family planning methods including the use of all kinds of contraceptives most of which are already known and proven to cause abortion. As worded the bill allows couples and individuals to choose from and use DepoProvera, RU 486, IUD, Norplant and the Emergency Contraceptive Pill all of which directly cause abortion because they prevent the implantation of the embryo into the uterus. The bill if passed therefore violates the State policy enunciated in the Constitution to protect the life of the unborn from conception which is an adaptation of the internationally accepted concept that pregnancy occurs from conception before the implantation of the embryo in the uterus.The developer of the contraceptive pill himself has found its adverse effects on virtually every organ system of the human body as it interferes with the normal functioning of the womans vitally important reproductive

system with harmful consequences on the infants. The same section of the Constitution also provides that the natural and primary right and duty of parents in the development of the moral character of their children shall receive the support of the Government. Instead of merely supporting the parents, the bill however takes away from them such natural and primary right and duty by requiring grade school children to undergo sex education in the classrooms using modules that undermine or are contrary to the moral and religious convictions of their families. This even violates the freedom of religion (Section 5, Article III). Our legislators ought to know that determining the size of the family is the inherent right and the exclusive prerogative of married Filipino couples which the State must defend, not violate or interfere with. The State must defend this right because it recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. So the State cannot use the family as its tool in implementing government programs like population management.At this stage therefore knowingly enacting the bill after being repeatedly reminded of these violations of our fundamental law is already a clear case of culpable violation of the Constitution.

NECESSITY:

The latest National Statistics Office figures show a growth rate of 2.04% from the previous rate of 2.36% last 2000, while the fertility rate has declined to 3.02% from 3.05%. In the 70s the average number of children per family was seven. Now it is three. So while our population is still increasing as expected of any country inhabited by males and females of reproductive age, there is already a steady deceleration of growth rate even without the passage of said bill. The bill will just promote the undesirable outcome of de-population that is now the problem of rich countries which adopted the same program where a dwindling number of young people are left to bear the needs of a dying and graying population. The bill is not necessary because our poverty which it seeks to alleviate is not due to our growing population but to many other factors like bad governance and systematic graft and corruption. There are countries which are more densely populated than our country yet they have higher standard of living. Indeed the worlds resources are enough for mans need but not enough for mans greed. The better solution to poverty is not to reduce the number of poor people but to provide them with good education and decent jobs. There may be population problems in our country but the solution is not simply to force the reduction of population growth by promoting contraceptives. Population development or demographic regulation may be carried out in many other ways like encouraging the migration of individuals to less populated areas, developing the countryside to avoid concentration of population in the cities, passing laws that limit the number of residents in certain areas.

It is not necessary to pass the bill and appropriate billions of pesos of taxpayers money for artificial contraceptives to prevent pregnancy because pregnancy is not a disease or a health problem. Pregnancy is in fact a sign of good health and the beginning of a new life. If the purpose is to protect married womens reproductive health or prevent or reduce maternal deaths, these billions of pesos should be spent instead for adequate basic and emergency obstetrics-care facilities and skilled medical services to women and for protecting and curing them of real and more serious illnesses that have higher mortality rates like heart and vascular diseases, cancer, pneumonia, tuberculosis, diabetes and lower chronic respiratory diseases.Funds from the national budget that could otherwise go to programs for farmers, overseas Filipino workers (OFWS), potential skilled workers and aspiring college students are being slashed to make way for a reproductive health law, which in my view should not be prioritize for we have more pressing problems like education, food security, national security and the like. Further it suggests that women restrain their reproductive capacity using artificial means like contraceptive pills and devices that directly cause abortion or indirectly lead to abortion and other harmful side effects such as breast, liver and cervical cancer. Without legalizing abortion the bill actually promotes it and exposes Filipino women to other serious health problems. The bill should therefore be voted down. Our legislators should not succumb to the pressures of well-funded international organizations and multibillion dollar pharmaceutical companies advocating this harmful program solely for their own selfish interests. The future of our children and of our country is at stake here.

CONCLUSION:

The Reproductive Health Bill, the Responsible Parenthood Bill or any other name terminology they are all one in the same just with different names or titles. Supporters of the bill argue that the R.H. Bill is the panacea to our countries woes, this claim is untenable and without merit. They based this assumption on the correlation between population growth and economic development. But according to Simon Kuznets a Nobel Prize winner in the science of economics, No clear association is his answer;many later studies confirmed this, including a 2003 study of the RAND Corporation, a world leader in research associated with 30 Nobel Prize winners. Is population control one of the ingredients for high economic growth and poverty reduction? No, population control is not among the five solutions or ingredients found by the 2008 Commission on Growth and Development headed by Nobel prize winner Michael Spence. The growth factors are: good governance, openness to knowledge, stable finances, market allocation, investment and savings. Our country loses 400 billion pesos to corruption every year. Hence corruption and government mismanagement should first be addressed. The other more important issues like quality education, housing and food security are likewise must be resolve at the soonest and our government should know how to prioritize what is really needed by our country, and not just listen to what the Americans imposed on them in exchange for foreign aid. It can be discerned basing on the brief history of the R.H. Bill that America is the main precursor to this population control policy, because they deemed it important that we control our population so that we consumed less raw materials and our surplus will go to them, this selfish act of the United States is evident on their pronouncement that they

will go to the as far as influencing National Leaders of countries to adopt population control measures. To the argument that curbing population is the solution to poverty, I would say that it is not the ultimate solution. The ultimate solution to poverty alleviation, besides good governance, is education. (Diana Uichanco) (Reacting to the 2011 budget which slashed the funding of state
universities and colleges)

Ibelieve that everybody in this country has a right of choice. That is, we all have the right to do whatever we want to do with our own body, the state or the government have no right to use force or compulsion against any sector or group of individuals in our society. The debates on the R.H. Bill still rages on whether on the floors of congress or on street corners, public opinion shifts from one side to the other almost every day. In congress the numbers game will be surely be played when consideration of the bill will commence. The pressures our Representatives in Congress go through are enormous and seemingly insurmountable; the well-funded lobbying machinery backing the R.H. Bill is one such pressure. But nevertheless I am still optimistic that our Congressmen still have the decency to uphold the Constitution and to perform their primordial duty to their constituents which is to promote and protect their welfare. They must ensure therefore that this bill will not pass on into law.

REFFERENCES:

1. Promoting Reproductive Health: A Unified Strategy to Achieve the MDGs. Senate of the
Philippines Economic Planning Office. July 2009. PB-09-03.

2. "House panel approves RH bill". www.philstar.com. Philippine Star February 1, 2011. 3. "RH bill OKd at House committee level". politics.inquirer.net. Philippine Daily Inquirer. 4. World Leaders (January 1968). "Declaration on Population". Studies in Family Planning. 5. Antonio de los Reyes (2002). "Coercive Population Ploys in the Philippines". Population Research Institute. 6. US Department of National Security (1974). "National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM 200)". USAID. 7. 1987 Philippines Constitution 8. The Growth Commission (2008) The Growth Report: Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development, World Bank Publication. 9. Studies of the Asian Development Bank and World Bank. 10. Bloom, Canning, Sevilla, The Demographic Dividend: A New Perspective on the Economic Consequences of Population Change, RAND Corporation, 2003, 17. 11. Kuznets (1974) Population Capital and Growth, Norton. 12. http://couragephilippines.blogspot.com/2011/05/science-facts-on-rh-bill.html 13. http://www.scribd.com/doc/24580669/Medical-Primer-on-RH-Bill 14. http://www.chanrobles.com/article2.htm 15. http://www.undp.org.ph/?link=4

16. http://rhbill.org/ 17. http://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/reproductive-health-bill-5043/text-ofrh-bill-no-5043/ 18. http://jlp-law.com/blog/full-text-of-house-bill-no-5043-reproductive-health-andpopulation-development-act-of-2008/ 19. http://www.likhaan.org/content/rh-bill-philippines-full-text-reproductive-health-andrelated-measures 20. http://www.pagasalambat.org/2010/10/reproductive-health-rh-bill-debate-in.html 21. http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-support-RH-BiLL-PRO-RH-BiLL-ako/215358455150098