Senate may shelve hot potato RH bill

The Senate appears inclined to put the Reproductive Health (RH) bill on the back burner until heated debates on it boil over as leaders of the chamber said yesterday the bill is not among the priority measures in the Senate.

“We are not going to be rushed to approve a bill as sensitive as the RH bill without studying it. We know that our growth rate is a certainty and that there’s an alternative,” Senate Pre-sident Juan Ponce Enrile said.

“We should not just adopt policies that will favor a certain sector or for the economy to grow to the detriment of other people,” Enrile added.

The upper chamber chief’s statements validated earlier pronouncements made by Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III that pending bills in the upper chamber related to reproductive health are not among their legislative agenda.

Sotto himself had admitted that he is against any form of artificial contraception or those on population control but this doesn’t mean that he will not be supportive of any bill promoting reproductive health.

Sotto said he stands supportive of measures addressing reproductive health of women.

“We will tackle measures on reproductive health but it’s not a priority right now,” the majority

leader who is the rules committee chair, said.

Enrile, in explaining his position, cited the need for the government to first increase the country’s economic pace and financial standing as population growth rate increases.

“That’s one alternative. We are now talking of a 6.8 growth, and probably it will go up to more than 7. Some are even predicting that we might grow as high as 8. Our economy is growing that fast, but we have to see to it that the population rate will also go down.

“It is an anti-poverty policy to reduce poverty in the country and the norm should be to increase the tempo of the economy. Open the country to more investment opportunities by removing the roadblocks in investments,” said Enrile.

The authors of the bill in the House of Representatives, meanwhile, called on bishops to refrain from twisting the bill and to speak the truth on the measure.

Rep. Edcel Lagman, principal author of House Bill 96; Reps. Luz Ilagan and Emmi de Jesus of Gabriela Party List, authors of HB 3387; Rep. Arlene “Kaka” Bag-Ao of Akbayan Party List, author of HB 513; Rep. Jose Ma. Zubiri co-author of HB 96; and Rep. Antonio Tinio of Alliance for Concerned Teachers (ACT) Party List, co-author of HB 3387, lamented the recent attacks thrown at them by some bishops.

According to Ramon San Pascual, executive director of the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development Foundation, Inc. (PLCPD), it is totally unfair for a religious leader to label RH bill authors and supporters as “people with lost morality” and “with consciences that are not well formed.”

Attacking the members of Congress merely shows oppositionists’ lack of substance and further flames up hostility between certain church leaders and the general public.

“If the authors are indeed people with lost morality, what does that make of the 83 percent the Filipino people, who, by survey results, are clamoring for reproductive health education and services from the Government?” San Pascual asked.

He stressed that “ill health among women, high maternal mortality, and immorality of mass poverty – these are the central issues that RH bill authors would like to resolve by their determined efforts to pass this important piece of legislation. These are also the issues that opponents of RH bill continue to muddle by throwing threats and lies meant for public consumption.”

San Pascual challenged those who have objections to the RH bill to be constructive and participate as decent members of society in bill deliberation in both chambers of Congress.

“Act out your being spiritual leaders, stop bullying people. In the name of fairness, please allow lawmakers to deliberate on the RH bill and vote on it.”

In another development, Sen. Senator Pia S. Cayetano called on the Aquino administration to support the cause of Filipino ‘comfort women’ who were used as sex slaves by the Japanese Imperial Army at the height of World War II.

Cayetano made the appeal following reports that President Aquino is planning to ask Congress to appropriate funds for war-time comfort women in order to make up for the failure of past governments to undertake such reparation.

Cayetano, chairman of the Senate committee on youth, women and family relations, has taken up the cause of comfort women in the last three Congresses.

In the 13th and 14th sessions of Congress, she filed a resolution directing the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to exert utmost diplomatic efforts to push for the immediate passage of a bill filed before the House of Councilors of Japan (Diet of Japan) concerning issues related to victims of war-time sexual coercion. Cayetano plans to refile the said resolution when session resumes next week.

Along with the resolution, Cayetano has also refiled a bill that seeks to provide compensation and health benefits to the comfort women. She is hopeful that President Aquino will certify as urgent Senate Bill 2083, the “Comfort Women Compensation and Benefit Act of 2010,” a measure which she has been re-filing since the 13th Congress.

“These women who are now in the twilight of their lives have suffered in silence for decades, but still managed to gather the courage to come out and tell the whole world their story and demand justice for the dastardly acts committed against them. More than half a century has passed, and many of them have passed away without receiving any apologies and compensation for the trauma they suffered.”

“The government, however, has chosen to remain indifferent to their plight. It simply waited for the Japanese government to take the initiative of issuing an apology and providing compensation to the comfort women, which both never happened. This bill seeks to recognize the comfort women and alleviate their suffering through financial compensation and health insurance from our government,” Cayetano said.

Under the bill, the Philippine Commission on Women (formerly the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women) will be tasked with determining the authenticity of the claims and identities of comfort women, with the assistance of various accredited cause-oriented women’s groups.

The measure sets aside an initial fund of P10 million for the processing of applications and payment of pensions and insurance of the comfort women. The comfort women will be entitled to a monthly compensation of P3,000 through the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office, free full medical insurance through PHilhealth, and counseling and guidance through the Department of Social Welfare and Development. –Angie M. Rosales, Daily Tribune