RH bandwagon: 6 new bills filed

MANILA, Philippines – Joining in the reproductive health (RH) bandwagon, lawmakers filed 6 separate bills to take advantage of the position taken by Malacañang.

House Minority leader Edcel Lagman was first to file a bill for the 15th Congress, a move that he has long been pursuing.

Lawmakers and RH advocates have not seen the bill come to fruition in the last 14 years.

As of October 4, the lower House has received 5 more versions: from Iloilo 1st District Rep. Janette Garin, Akbayan Reps. Kaka Bag-ao and Walden Bello, Muntinlupa Rep. Rodolfo Biazon, Iloilo 2nd District Rep. Augusto Syjuco, and Gabriela Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan.

All 6 bills are pushing for better access to safe, legal and effective means to ensuring reproductive health.

One of the bills reads, “the State…guarantees universal access to medically-safe, legal, affordable, effective and quality reproductive health care services, methods, devices, supplies and relevant information and education…”

Meanwhile, Bag-ao asked President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III to certify the RH bills as urgent.

“President Aquino, in your State of the Nation Address, you stressed the importance of a government that puts the welfare of the people above the interest of the few,” she said.

She said the biggest stumbling block is the refusal of some quarters to tackle the bill.

“But the debate of a fundamentally public policy issue should eventually and promptly be brought back to where it belongs – within the walls of our policy-making bodies. For the past few days, the nation witnessed a growing clamor for a resolution to the reproductive health debate,” she added.

She said the bills filed are not abortion bills, as what the Church is saying.

“It simply expands access to healthcare and corrects the exclusion of certain communities, poor women in particular, in the delivery of health services,” she said. –abs-cbnNEWS.com