Miriam to sponsor RH bill Monday

Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago will be sponsoring the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill on the Senate floor next Monday. Santiago quickly noted, however, that she will not be delivering a "pugnacious or belligerent" speech. "Magiging mabait ako dahil takot ako sa mga obispo (I will be good because I am afraid of bishops). After all they are all my spiritual superiors," she said in an ambush interview with reporters on Thursday. She explained that the speech will be an appeal for understanding from the Catholic Church, which has consistently opposed the use and state provision of artificial birth control methods like condoms and birth control pills. "As long as the individual Catholic has studied and meditated and prayed over a moral issue and he reaches a conclusion in conscience, then he must follow his conscience," she said. The Senate's version of the RH bill is a consolidated version of Santiago's Senate bill 2378, Sen. Panfilo Lacson's SB 2738 and Sen. Pia Cayetano's Senate resolution 238. Under the RH bill, the state shall guarantee universal access to medically safe, legal, affordable, and quality reproductive health services, methods, devices, supplies, and relevant information on the matter. But aside from the RH bill, Santiago said she also plans to sponsor the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court next week. Under the treaty, the court can step in only when countries are unwilling or unable to dispense justice themselves for genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes. - Kimberly Jane Tan/KBK, GMA News