Rep. Rico speaks: substitute RH bill still unconstitutional

sample photo only

 By JUNE S. BLANCO

 

THE substitute version of House Bill 4244 or the RH Bill is still unconstitutional, a source of corruption, immoral, redundant and unnecessary.

Rep. Erico Aumentado (2nd District, Bohol) made his stand in a privilege speech Monday at the Lower House.

The Bohol solon said the revised bill is being paraded to have the imprimatur, or at least, the tacit approval, of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). But, Aumentado quoted Bishop Leonardo Medroso of the Diocese of Tagbilaran, a doctor of Canon Laws and one of the CBCP leading lights, as saying that there is no such alleged approval by the Catholic bishops of the substitute RH Bill.

Aumentado also expressed concern that Rep. Edcel Lagman, the bill’s principal author, was quoted by the Philippine Star to have said that the substitute bill is “not a watered down version” because the essence of the original bill is still there, intact, and promotes contraceptives.

“We must be on guard and not be misled, for the bill, even as revised purportedly to compromise with the oppositors, is violative of the Constitution,” he said.

Added to his “growing suspicion” that the substitute measure is being presented to mislead the congressmen and the public was Health Secretary Enrique Ona’s statement in media supporting Lagman’s position that “the original bill is intact, and that the motherhood provisions therein can be fleshed out and particularized in the guidelines to be crafted.”

For this reason, the solon said, he is calling on his colleagues to be more vigilant and scrutinize the substitute measure because it is not only deceiving but clearly violative of the Constitution and infirm for being a source of corruption, immorality and redundancy.

The bill is unconstitutional because it endangers, and does not actually protect the lives of the mother and the unborn from conception.

For starters, he said, United States medical authorities led by the Mayo Clinic in its Medical Journal of October 2006, buttressed by the opinion of Nobel laureates tapped by the US Senate, have said that contraceptives can cause breast, cervical and colon cancer in mothers. On the other hand, intra-uterine devices (IUDs) can also cause cancer of the cervix and vagina of the mother, and death to the unborn child. And if it survives, the child suffers some infirmities. either mental or physical.

In 2004, the World Health Organization classified combined oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy as “carcinogenic to humans.” WHO said that oral contraceptives use increases the risk of developing cancer of the breast, liver and cervix. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) supports the WHO pronouncement. Cancer has become the No. 1 killer disease of the Philippines. Consequently, the bill runs counter to the constitutional command of protecting the life of the mother and the unborn.

In the investigation conducted by the US Senate on the US policy of providing contraceptives, IUDs and condoms to 13 third world countries including the Philippines, it was found out that apart from causing injuries and serious ailments to the mother and the unborn child, the use of contraceptives and IUDs could cause abortion. In fact, then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that reproductive health must necessarily include abortion.  The same assertion was repeated by US State Secretary Hillary Clinton when she said reproductive health means abortion to be an effective instrument of population control.

Meanwhile, according to authorities and social scientists, the use of condom has been the reason for promiscuity which resulted to infidelity by either the husband or the wife. This unfortunate impact of condom use has led to the breakup of families, and therefore, violate the constitutional recognition of the sanctity of marital life.

Aumentado said the RH bill would squander billions of pesos yearly for the purchase of contraceptives, IUDs and condoms which could only enrich multi-national pharmaceuticals. As a consequence, there is serious suspicion that fat commissions are being given for their procurement, especially in 2013 which is a bi-election year. Obviously, he said, this is the basis of Archbishop Socrates Villegas in asserting that contraception is corruption not only to line the pockets of some government officials, but moral corruption as well.

If the target of the government is to reduce maternal and child mortality, the RH bill is not the solution, rather it would aggravate the problem of mortality rate. He said the government should follow the Bohol experience where the church and the government joined forces in distributing multivitamins to pregnant and lactating mothers, reducing their mortality rate from five to only one percent during his incumbency as governor, confirmed by the Department of Health.

Therefore, the government should supply multi-vitamins to pregnant and lactating mothers instead of contraceptives and IUDs. This way, the government can save billions of pesos from its limited resources, and use the savings to upgrade hospitals, health centers and birthing centers, or build more classrooms, hire new teachers and provide computers and internet access to students, Aumentado suggested.

He negated the contention of RH bill proponents that the growing population of the Philippines can cause further poverty of the people and the economic ruin of the country. This is a non sequitur argument, he said. Because without the overseas Filipino workers, the Philippine economy would have long floundered. The more than US$18 billion remitted annually by the OFWs have become the saving grace of the economy.

What the government should do now is to harness the people for the economic development of the country like what China and India, the world’s most populous countries, did. They are now tremendously progressive because they utilized their huge manpower for productive economic endeavors, he said.

In contrast, progressive countries like Japan, Korea, USA and some European countries have depopulated due to State mantra. This has caused a demographic nightmare, he said. These countries now find it difficult to reverse the aging of their population resulting to the lack of manpower for their various industries, he explained.

In the same light, former Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yu, the architect of Singapore’s phenomenal progress and development, lamented his restricted population growth which resulted to Singapore’s lack of manpower of Singaporean descent. To reverse the nightmarish situation, he said, Singapore has to open its windows to migration from other countries to replenish its aging population and provide fresh manpower for its continued economic development.

He said the Philippines should not lose its population advantage which, in the long run, would make the country one of the major economic players in Asia.

Meanwhile, many laws are now in place such as the Population Control Law, Republic Act 9710 or the Magna Carta for Women, RA 9262 or Anti-Violence Against Women and Children, RA 8504 (Philippine AIDS Prevention and Control Act of 1998, RA 7883 (Barangay Health Workers Benefits and Incentives Act of 1995), RA 7585 (National Health Insurance Act of 1995) and a panoply of other laws, executive orders, department program circulars and policy guidelines. Likewise, there are already executive orders implementing the program of distributing contraceptives, IUDs and condoms by government workers, who unwittingly or wittingly, are being used for mass destruction of human lives and families. Hence, the bill is a redundant measure.