Palace unfazed, triples family planning budget to P3B—Abad

PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III will make it a national policy to provide couples with an informed choice on family planning methods and triple the funding for population management, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said Tuesday.

“The President is firm on his position,” said Abad, who was in the House to defend the P1.645-trillion national budget.

“He is not backing down and he has not changed his position. It is the first time that a President has made it clear that his pronouncements would be made a national policy.”

Abad said the Executive department had earmarked P7 billion out of its P29 billion in cash aid to the poor to maternal and child health care.

The President would meet with Catholic bishops who oppose all forms of contraception to help them understand his stand, Abad said.

Asked about congressional efforts to double the Health Department’s P932-million budget for reproductive health, Abad said the figure might even be tripled.

House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman, principal author of the reproductive health bill, said it was the state’s constitutional mandate to manage its population, which was now at 94 million and expected to hit 100 million by 2013.

House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. assured lawmakers he would have the bill, which was scuttled during the last Congress by the Catholic Church, debated and voted upon on the floor.

Abad described as a “breakthrough” President Aquino’s decision to make reproductive health and responsible parenthood a national policy.

“It is a breakthrough that we have a President that will make it [reproductive health] a policy without fear of political setbacks and consequences because he believes in it. He will make it a national policy,” Abad said.

“What is important now is to have a national policy, then money or funding will follow.”

Pro- and anti-reproductive health lawmakers elbowed each other out to file bills and resolutions to make their positions known.

Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez filed House Resolution 491 calling for the House committee on health to conduct an inquiry into reports that certain contraceptives were carcinogenic and hazardous to women’s health.

Bacolod City Rep. Anthony Golez, an obstetrician-gynecologist, went to the House Press Office to explain to reporters that there was a 9- percent chance that contraceptives, particularly pills, could lead to abortion.

“That means nine out of 100 women are aborting the child because of the 9-percent escape ovulation when taking pills,” he said.

“Give me something lawful and I would support your RH bill.”

House Senior Assistant Majority Leader Janette Garin, also a doctor, doubted Anthony Golez’s conclusions.

“Even the World Health Organization has identified which pills and other birth control devices are abortifacient and these were taken off the drugstores already,” Garin said.

“HB 96 [the reproductive health bill] is definitely anti-abortion. The RH bill is pro-life.”

Said Akbayan Rep. Kaka Bag-ao: “It is the choice of an anti-RH advocate to ignore overwhelming scientific evidence about the effectiveness and safety of contraceptives.

“He [Golez] shouldn’t expect, however, that a resolution alone would block us from performing our duty—the crafting of a much-needed policy to protect the life, rights and dignity of Filipinos who need RH services.”

You Against Corruption and Poverty Rep. Jayne Lopez, co-author of the reproductive health bill, filed another measure that would grant a 20-percent discount to single parents when they buy milk or formula, medicines and supplements, diapers and supplies for babies.

Lopez, a single parent herself, said 14 million single parents in the country needed help from the government.

“Being a solo parent doubles the responsibility of raising a child, and it makes both solo parents and their children vulnerable to all of life’s hardships,” Lopez said.

“As members of the society’s vulnerable protection groups, solo parents need all the help they can get from the government.” –Christine F. Herrera, Manila Standard Today