Congress leaders noncommittal on RH bill passage

Despite their promises to push for the fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Congress leaders on Wednesday were noncommittal on the approval of the controversial reproductive health (RH) bill. In an interview after the ceremonial handover of the Citizens’ Report on the MDGs held at the House of Representatives, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte noted the contentiousness of the proposed measure. “I’ll be frank with you. That piece of legislation is not that easy to handle. There are many things to consider, the faith of every Filipino and your notion of what life is," Enrile told reporters. Belmonte agreed. “It’s of course a very explosive issue with points of view clashing," he said. During the event, Enrile said the Senate will continue to pass laws that support the attainment of the MDGs, or the measurable targets state leaders promised to fulfill by 2015 in order to eradicate poverty and hunger, reduce inequality and promote human rights. The Catholic Church has been the most vocal critics of the proposed measure. Both Enrile and Belmonte, however, promised to seriously consider the RH bill. “I have to answer you in this manner, I have to study it and see whether I could live with some of the provisions embedded in that proposed legislation," Enrile said. “What I’d like to do is to see that it reaches the floor of the House," said Belmonte. “It’s been discussed in committees and it will be discussed in the committees again but I hope that within the next three years it finally reaches the floor where everybody has the right to vote on his opinion or conviction." Still optimistic House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman, author of “Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population and Development," remains optimistic that the bill will be passed into law in the 15th Congress. “We have been pushing for that and I understand that the leadership of the House is prioritizing the consideration and voting on the RH bill. I think within the first year of the 15th Congress we should be able to see light at the end of the tunnel," he told reporters in a separate interview. The RH bill promotes freedom of informed choice wherein parents, couples and women enjoy the liberty or option of choosing from a menu of modern-natural and artificial family planning methods that are medically safe, legal, accessible, affordable and effective. Lagman re-filed the bill on July 1, the first day of the 15th Congress. The first comprehensive version of the bill was filed in 1999 when the country’s population was roughly 75 million. Ten years later, Lagman said the country holds the dubious distinction of being the 12th most populous country in the world with a population of 94.3 million or a staggering increase of 19.3 million. This would translate to an annual average increase of almost two million every year in a decade, he said. The lawmaker from Bicol said the measure recognizes the undeniable linkage between population and development because the issue on population directly affects human development indicators on health, education, food security, employment, mass housing and the environment. RH bill is rights-based He assured the public that the bill is rights-based, health-oriented and development-driven, adding that “neither the State nor the Church can compel the citizens or the faithful to adopt a particular method of family planning." The principal objectives of the measure are: * to allow parents, particularly women, to exercise their right to freely and responsibly plan the number and spacing of their children, which means that the bill is truly rights-based because it offers women and couples all forms of legal, safe and effective family planning, both modern-natural and artificial. * to improve maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition and reduce maternal, infant and child mortality, which means that the bill is primarily a health measure. * to give women more opportunities to finish their education and get jobs by freeing them from unremitting pregnancies, which will thus enhance their social and economic status and that of their families. * to help reduce poverty and achieve sustainable human development. * to help lower the incidence of abortion by preventing unplanned, wrongly timed and unwanted pregnancies which are the ones usually terminated. - KBK, GMANews.TV