Sen. Pia spells it out for RH critics: 'Abortion is a crime'

MANILA, Philippines - To accommodate Senate Majority Floor Leader Vicente Sotto III's misgivings about the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, Senator Pia Cayetano on Thursday amended the bill to include a specific provision that declares that abortion is a crime.

“To put the issue to rest and allay fears that the RH bill will promote abortion,” the sponsor of the bill introduced subsection (j) in Section 3: “Abortion is a criminal act in accordance with existing laws.”

The line came along with 12 other amendments introduced by Cayetano.

Cayetano's list of amendments followed on the heels of an earlier set of suggestions from Sen. Ralph Recto, who interpellated Sotto after the last part of his turno en contra speech Wednesday night. Among others, Recto wanted amended the penal provisions on LGU chiefs deemed "violators," noting that local governments already have a grave financial burden in terms of basic health care, without having to worry about the new fiscal impositions from enforcing the RH bill, let alone jail terms. Recto's wife, Vilma Santos, is governor Batangas province.

Addressing concerns that the bill promotes population control, especially of the poor, Cayetano renamed the bill from “An act providing for a national policy on reproductive health and population and development” to “An act providing for a national policy on reproductive health and responsible parenthood.”

In response to Sotto’s opposition of having contraceptives categorized as “essential medicines,” Cayetano deleted the objected phrase and introduced the concept of the Philippine National Drug Formulary System. The title of Section 9 thus now reads: The Philippine National Drug Formulary System (PNDFS) and Family Planning Supplies. The list of contraceptives in the section were not removed but the tasks of PNDFS was defined to include “selecting drugs, including family planning supplies, that will be included or removed from the essential drugs list (EDL) in accordance with existing practice.”

On the issue of public awareness, which is now Section 15 (previously Section 16) of the bill, Cayetano expanded its coverage to include maternal health and nutrition, as well as “family planning information and services, adolescent and youth reproductive health, guidance and counseling and other elements of reproductive health case under Section 4 (o).” It also specifies periodic review of material for public dissemination.

Cayetano also changed the title of Section 6, from Provision of Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care to Health Care Facilities, and ensured healthcare service to isolated and depressed areas with the addition of the phrase “through house-to-house visits or mobile health care clinics as needed.”

To reflect that Filipinos are kind and empathetic, and that Filipino tradition tend to “reach out and extend genuine care and concern for our countrymen in need, (and) more so for women who are pregnant and in need of special care,” Cayetano re-introduced subsection (l) in Section 3: “All complications arising from pregnancy, labor, and delivery shall be treated in a humane and compassionate manner.”

Cayetano also deleted the entire subsection (i) of Section 4 (The definition of terms) defining an “indigent.”

The other amendments concerned minor changes like the year, NGOs instead of non-government organizations, and punctuation marks.

source: interaksyon.com

Students have their faces painted with anti-RH bill signs

The United Nations warned Sunday that failure to pass a controversial birth control law in the Philippines could reverse gains in development goals amid stiff opposition from the powerful Catholic church.

The bill seeks to make it mandatory for the government to provide free contraceptives in a country where more than 80 percent of the population is Catholic and which has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in Southeast Asia.

Ugochi Daniels, country representative from the UN Population Fund, said she remained "cautiously optimistic" that President Benigno Aquino III's allies who dominate the House of Representatives could muster the numbers to pass the bill on Tuesday after 14 years of often divisive debate.

"What is important now is to highlight the urgency of the bill," Daniels said.

The UN, 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.

"The United Nations believes that apprehensions such as exposure of people to risks of contraceptive use, encouragement of sexual promiscuity and legalization of abortion have no basis. Instituting a reproductive health policy is consistent with the government’s duty under the Constitution to protect and promote the right to health of the people and instill health consciousness among them," the UN said.

"Reproductive health is not about population numbers. It is about ensuring a life of health and dignity ... Time spent discussing these issues repeatedly is measured by the lives of the 15 women we lose to maternal deaths every day," it added.

The body said it had "extensively studied" the proposed 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.

A rise in unwanted pregnancies could swell the number of people in poverty, and lead to an explosion in urban slum populations, the UN said.

And while the country has been enjoying economic expansion of more than five percent in recent years, the gains could be reversed, it warned.

"Hopes of future prosperity could turn to dust if the country is not able to deal with the population growth," the UN said.

Daniels said maternal deaths would continue to rise with more and more women getting pregnant at a young age without the proper health care and access to key reproductive information.

Between 2006 and 2010, the maternal mortality rate rose 36 percent to 221 deaths per 100,000 live births, from 162 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2000 to 2005, according to the government's 2011 Family Health Survey.

And many of those giving birth were girls between 15 and 19 years old, the UN said.

"I think we've gone from 11 (maternal deaths) a day to between 14 and 15 a day now. And unfortunately, most of these are poor women," Daniels said.

The UN Population Fund was "very concerned" about the rising number of deaths, she said, noting that even in war-torn Afghanistan the trend was downwards.

She urged Philippine lawmakers to quickly pass the bill and "stop failing our young."

"This is now the time. We have been waiting for a very long time," Daniels said.

The UN's call came as Catholic priests and nuns led thousands in a protest rally in Manila Saturday to urge lawmakers to scrap the bill.

Besides free contraception, it would also give the poor preferential access to family planning services in state hospitals, while lessons on family planning and sex education would become compulsory in schools and for couples applying for a marriage license.

The UN has said a lack of education and access to condoms has led to an explosion of HIV infections in the Philippines, which it said is now one of seven countries in the world where cases have risen by 25 percent or more since 2001.

Aquino has signaled his backing for the bill ahead of Tuesday's vote in the House of Representatives.

The Senate, the upper house of parliament, also needs to pass the bill before it can become law, but some of its leaders were seen giving their support to the church rally Saturday.

The consolidated measure of the RH bill, which was submitted to Congress in August last year, was a product of a series of dialogues between the Palace and the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines and other stakeholders.

As a result of the dialogues, the consolidated version does away with a provision to limit the number of children per family and also increased the age at which children will be given sex education in schools.

The executive branch also moved to amend a provision requiring all hospitals to carry a full-range of modern artificial family planning methods.

On Thursday, Aquino expressed hope Congress will finally end deabtes on the measureon August 7.

"Perhaps the debates should end and Congress can decide, once and for all, on the Responsible Parenthood bill," he said.

source: interaksyon.com