The disclosure of an almost P14-billion budgetary requirement being imposed by the Department of Health (DoH) and proposed to be included in the 2012 budget for the implementation of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill gave Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile another reason to strongly oppose the highly debated measure.
“This now suggests to me that at the bottom of this bill is indeed a measure to control population in this country. So it is better for us to bring it out into the open and call a spade a spade instead of hiding it from the people only to wake up one day that they are going to carry a very huge financial burden to support this bill. I would like to put this into the record because I was amazed that they had proposed it,” he noted.
Enrile confronted the main sponsor of the bill in the upper chamber, Sen. Pia Cayetano, when the latter mentioned during Tuesday’s debates that the DoH is in fact pushing a P13.7-billion funding to cover not only the provision of contraceptives but other logistical needs in implementing the proposed law.
Cayetano herself admitted on the floor that she had not given any commitment on this matter, the amount being proposed to be spread out in major services for the year 2012, until she had been furnished with full details.
Enrile raised a howl as this was not mentioned in their previous interpellations, expressing his view that nowhere in the bill can be found a clear-cut explanation on population policy.
“There was no clear-cut answer because the statements of policies all talk about reproductive health, family planning and so forth. But there is no transparent, clear-cut definition of population policy.
“Why is the DoH not open enough to tell us in the budget hearings that they are anticipating an additional outlay for the health program of the government coming out of this bill that will involve such a huge amount of money to be funded from tax money,” the Senate chief asked.
Enrile said there is a need to scrutinize the bill “very carefully because this might be a trap for the country.”
Cayetano then went on to explain that there was no intent to deceive the public about a population program since the Constitution is also already clear that there should be no imposition of such policy when it is the intention of achieving certain economic goals.
But in relating the bill to the issue of sustainable development being espoused by the measure, Enrile said this goes hand in hand with the issue of birth control and assessment of the environment and resources of the country, “in order to make life easy, happy and worthwhile for the next generation.”
“And that only means controlling the population of the country no less, no more. But the bill itself did not state it clearly. We have to analyze it to understand the real direction and objective of this bill.
“As I said and I repeat it and I stand by it, this bill was couched in the form of health bill but the real objective is to reduce the fertility rate in the country without stating it in the bill. It is a free-flowing option. At what point are we going to stop distributing condoms, birth pills, injectibles and other contraceptives?” he asked. –Angie M. Rosales, Daily Tribune
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