Govt, bishops agree on RH information drive

The Catholic Church has accepted that the government will implement an information drive that will inform the public about the benefits and risks of both natural and modern birth control methods, a Palace spokesman said Wednesday. Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said Cabinet members and Catholic bishops agreed during their dialogue earlier in the day to form a technical working group composed of doctors and medical experts that will determine "universally-accepted" information on reproductive health. "The parties agreed that full information must be provided to the public regarding all methods of family planning. It was also discussed that information as to the benefits and risks of the family planning methods will also be provided," he said. The Church will "suggest" information that will be included in the information materials, Lacierda said. The recommendation of the technical working group, once approved by both panels, will be distributed by the government to the public without Church opposition although the Church itself will not be required to distribute the said information, said Lacierda. "It's up to them. They are going to espouse a pro-natural family [planning] plan. You cannot expect them to also promote artificial family planning methods on their own. As the government, we are responsible and we are in charge or tasked to provide information to the different methods of family planning," he said. Present in the dialogue, which was held at the Pope Pius Center along UN Avenue in Manila, were Lacierda, Budget Secretary Butch Abad, Health Secretary Enrique Ona, Presidential Management Staff chief Julia Abad, and Social Welfare assistant secretary Vilma Cabrera from the government side. From the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) side, those who attended were CBCP Secretary General Msgr. Juanito Figura, Pampanga Archbishop Paciano Aniceto, lawyer Jo Imbong, and other Church leaders and medical experts. The Church's decision to accede to the government's plan to distribute all-encompassing reproductive health information could be seen as a breakthrough in the dialogues because the Catholic Church, which staunchly opposes artificial birth control methods has staunchly opposed artificial birth control methods—some of which it views as abortifacients—has repeatedly sought to prevent the government from promoting both natural and artificial birth control methods. Lacierda said the government expects that there would no longer be a "word war" between the government and the Church as the government has made it clear that it will not back down from its position that it will inform the public about all their reproductive health and family planning options. No deadline was set for the determination of information, but the next meeting between the government and Church panels, which will be on "social welfare," will be held next month. Lacierda said the two camps also agreed during the dialogue that the government "should not be an instrument to enforce one's conscience/religious views" and should not "actively encourage the violation of the person's conscience." Lacierda said this was raised because the Catholic bishops were concerned that the government was going to force individuals to choose a certain family planning method. "We said no we're not going to do that, all we're saying is we're providing all the information for the individual to make a choice and again it's up to the person's conscience," he said. The two camps also agreed that the dialogues are being conducted "in order to get important stakeholder views on executive policies," but that the legislature, where the controversial RH bill is pending, is independent of the executive branch. — RSJ/KBK, GMANews.TV