House vows to hasten work on population bill

After saying there is no more time to pass a bill promoting population control, Speaker Prospero Nograles yesterday ordered Majority Leader Arthur Defensor to simplify the plenary debate to pave the way for the voting on the measure.

Nograles also directed the Defensor-led committee on rules to gather together the two major opposing sides to a conference to agree to mechanics of the debate and immediately put the bill to a vote.

The Speaker said the conference is meant to prevent personal, emotional and divisive matters to muddle the issue.

The measure, House Bill 5043, is principally authored by Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman and seeks to establish a national policy on reproductive health and population development. It is expected to be taken up by the plenary on Sept. 15.

Supporters of the bill led by Lagman and Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin, and some 450 women advocates, started putting pressure on the House leadership to pass the measure after a world conference hel in Berlin called on all countries to deliver their commitments to reproductive health.

Dr. Junice Melgar, executive director of Likhaan, and Benjamin de Leon, president of the The Forum on Family Planning and Development, led advocates in asking the House leadership to provide women and men access to birth control devices and other health services.

Melgar and De Leon were among the 400 participants from 131 countries to the Berlin Conference that called on 179 member-countries of the United Nations to deliver their commitments to the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. –Christine F. Herrera, Manila Standard Today