Reproductive health bill authors accused of ‘bestiality’

THE HOUSE leadership terminated the questioning of an anti-reproductive health lawmaker after he accused the more than 100 authors of the RH bill of promoting “immorality, promiscuity and bestiality” because they were pushing condoms and pills in family planning.

At the plenary debate on the RH bill Tuesday night, Palawan Rep. Victorino Dennis Socrates said the authors were “misusing their sexual powers” because sex was specifically designed “not only for pleasure but for procreation.”

After being barraged with “repetitive questions” by Socrates for more than three hours, Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello refused to dignify and answer any more of the same questions of “idiosyncrasy” from Socrates.

Socrates said sex using condoms and pills was “sex in denial” and against the law of nature, and that if the State sanctioned and funded the use of birth control pills, the Filipinos would become an “endangered species.”

“Please do not impose your particular brand of ethics on us,” Bello said.

“Let the Filipino people decide on what is moral and not. What is the center of this bill is the ability for one to be able to decide for himself or herself,” Bello said.

“If we don’t want to have children, let’s not have sex,” Socrates said in Tagalog.

“That’s responsible parenthood. Let’s not concentrate on the pleasures of sex. Let’s be open and not go against the natural method. Let’s not give in to randiness.

Bello replied: “We agree that freedom of choice is an ethically appropriate and good end. As long as it is not regarded universally as morally wrong, I do not see what he is leading to. If he wants to say the RH bill is immoral, then I say he is wrong.  –Christine F. Herrera, Manila Standard Today