YEARENDER: Church educates voters, opposes RH Bill

MANILA, Philippines – The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) in 2010 focused its attention on two main advocacies — the May 10 national elections and the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill.

CBCP spokesman Monsignor Pedro Quitorio III said 2010 proved to be a challenging year for them because the Church leaders were forced to decide and take direct action on issues that are crucial in shaping the lives of the faithful.

“I will call it (year 2010) challenging. It is more challenging this year because there were a lot of changes in the administration, new perspectives,” he said.

While the RH bill issue has become the more dominant issue at the tail-end of year 2010, Quitorio said the CBCP took a more challenging role in mobilizing a much bigger force for the May 10 polls.

“We had a bigger investment in political education,” he said.

Quitorio said the Catholic Church became busy in organizing its strategy and form of action for the national elections last May, from information dissemination, how to understand the automated election process, casting of votes, counting of the ballots until the proclamation of winners.

“Political advocacy was one of the advocacies where the Catholic Church was very active in 2010. We were doing elections, political education, voters education… The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) helped in the counting. This was for the first part of the year,” he said.

The Church-based election watchdog PPCRV, chaired by former ambassador Henrietta de Villa, and its army of volunteers waged its CHAMP battle cry that stood for Clean, Honest, Accurate, Meaningful and Peaceful elections and conducted the Quick Count.

The CBCP Media Office had done its part by tying up with the Catholic Media Network (CMN) in sponsoring a series of forums for candidates running for the May 10 elections.

The forums allowed the Church the opportunity to glean through the platforms of each candidate on various social and pressing issues.

The statements from the candidates were released to the public to guide them in choosing the candidates.

But by the second half of the year, attention shifted to the RH bill, particularly after Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, principal author of the bill re-filed the proposal on the first day of session in Congress.

“Since the bill was re-filed, the Church increased its advocacy against the RH,” Quitorio said.

The CBCP maintained its strong opposition over the passage of the RH bill believing that it contains provisions that would promote condom use, some of which are concealed abortificients.

Quitorio said the lawmakers were advised of the position and sentiments of the Church over the issue that was also brought down to the community level.

“The biggest role of the Catholic Church is not to lobby, although it may appear that we are lobbying our position in Congress. But the biggest that is being done now would be on the education side,” Quitorio said.

“Just wait, by year 2011, there would be several lay organizations that would be coming out with materials to educate the public on the RH bill,” he said.

The first to take on the task is the Council of the Laity of the Philippines (Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas), an association of 48 national lay organizations and 49 diocesan and archdiocesan councils.

On Dec. 1, the group came out with a statement expressing its “vehement objection” to the RH Bill citing its provisions as against life and violation of human rights.

Discussions over the RH bill became heated and in some instances, had been blown out of proportion.

There were reports, for instance, that the Church is threatening to excommunicate President Aquino because of his stand on the use of artificial contraceptives, but this was denied by CBCP president Tandag Bishop Nereo Odchimar.

As a result of this misunderstanding, the bishops have decided to also take a more diplomatic approach on how to pursue their advocacy.

They started arranging preliminary talks with top officials of the Aquino administration and recently agreed to form a technical working group (TWG) to discuss the contents of the information material for the reproductive health program of the government that would be released to the public.

The efforts of the Church however did not affect the lawmakers as they continue to deliberate on the RH bill.

Church leaders have also just started meeting with neophyte legislators through dialogues that are being organized by San Juan Rep. Jose Victor Ejercito. Succeeding meetings are being set next year, after the holiday season.

Quitorio said they intend to make the Catholic Church stronger next year and believes that the force supporting the RH bill would decrease because the wheels of their education and information drive have already begun and now even the fence-sitters on the issue would be enlightened.

Quitorio believed the RH bill advocates are fewer as compared to those opposing its passage.

“It’s just that those supporting the bill are noisier… and it does not mean that if you’re more noisy, you are more effective,” he said.

Quitorio said the Catholic Church is a very old institution and its ways are battle-tested.

“While making a lot of noise is very fleeting. It is like a firecracker thing, it will not last,” he said.

Quitorio said the Church managed to survive through thousands of years through “conscientization process.”

“That is deeply-rooted and long-lasting… the conscientization process can only be done if you hold the truth. If you hold the truth even if the process is slow, for as long as it is deep it would be more effective, rather than being short and loud,” he said.

It is because of these beliefs that the Catholic Church would never change its doctrine on life, Quitorio said. –Evelyn Macairan (The Philippine Star)