Belmonte to ask PNoy to certify RH bill as 'urgent'

Now that President Benigno Simeon Aquino III has risked criticisms for his stance on the issue of reproductive health (RH), House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said he will ask the President to certify the controversial RH bill as urgent. In his weekly press conference on Thursday, Belmonte said the bill will be discussed thoroughly in the House of Representatives despite strong opposition from the Church. “I think it's ok to ask the President, to request him if he can certify that (RH bill). Anyway he has bitten the bullet already," he said. Bills certified as urgent by the chief executive are given priority by the Congress. “Many of the newcomers in the House are very aware of that particular bill and as I said, I will see to it that it reaches the point of third reading where everybody can express his view for or against. That will be the will of the House," the Speaker said. However, Belmonte did not give an assurance that the bill will eventually be approved by the chamber. “I don’t like to say approve or disapprove on third reading. I say let it reach that stage where it will be voted on. It will be a little bit presumptuous of me to say that this side or that side has the majority," he said. During the third reading, the bill is presented to the plenary for voting. Lawmakers are given a chance to explain or defend their vote. As of Thursday, no schedule has been set to tackle the six RH bills pending before the House population committee, headed by Biliran Rep. Rogelio Espina. When he was informed that some Church leaders warned that they will campaign against lawmakers who will support the bill, Belmonte said the House members are willing to face the wrath of the Church. “Every congressman will take that into account. Hindi naman puwedeng sabihin na balewala yan. It depends on the various districts. Everyone has to assess that. Yet we ourselves have assessed it in the past, and we're willing to take the risk," he said. He noted that three congressmen — him, being the former mayor of Quezon City, and former councilors Jorge Banal and Winston Castelo — had approved a similar bill but they were not harassed by the Church. He noted that congressmen have different views on the matter. “I was talking with some people and nakita ko, may mga set views pala sila dun (when I saw that they had set views about it), I didn’t pursue that conversation, and let everybody have a chance," he said. Belmonte admitted that the RH bill is not being discussed in House and the chamber does not have a timetable for it. “We're not even talking about it. It was just suddenly brought into the limelight by his (President Aquino) remarks… Attention has been rekindled by the remarks of the President that the national government will provide, give information on all modes of family planning, whether natural or artificial," he said. He believed the rampant incidents of abortion and the case of the overseas worker who dumped her child in the garbage bin of an airplane have put the issue back on the public's mind. Asked if the House can put something in the bill that would convince the Church to support it, Belmonte does not think the Church will ever favor reproductive health because the “Church definition is not quite the same as legal definition". On Wednesday, House minority leader Edcel Lagman said the Church should not interfere with the government policy on family planning. RH bill 96 The reproductive health bill has been a contentious social issue in the country because it pits two powerful sectors against each other -- the Church and the development nongovernment sector backed by government technocrats. It is estimated that 80 percent of the country's population are baptized Catholics. According to the National Statistics Office, there were 88.57 million Filipinos as of August 2007. The projected population for 2010 is 94.01 million. The Catholic Church promotes only natural family planning and is opposed to the use of artificial birth control methods such as condoms and birth-control pills, saying these could lead to promiscuity and a rise in abortion cases. On the contrary, RH advocates claim that natural family planning methods have not proven to be as reliable as artificial means of birth control. End contraceptive mentality Earlier, Philippine bishops urged Aquino to reject current policies that promote artificial contraception to control the country’s population. CBCP President Nereo Odchimar said the government must protect the sanctity of life by putting an end to contraceptive mentality. Odchimar said the bishops hope the Aquino administration will not pursue programs that promote the use of contraceptives such as condoms and pills. The Catholic Church accepts only natural family planning (NFP) methods. The NFP has two distinct forms: * Ecological breastfeeding (a form of child care that normally spaces babies about two years apart on the average), and * Systematic NFP (a system that uses a woman’s signs of fertility to determine the fertile and infertile times of her cycle). –VVP, GMANews.TV