Sotto pinpoints USAID, UN as being behind RH bill push

The US government through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and agencies affiliated with the United Nations (UN) has been actively pushing the government to promote artificial contraceptives primarily condoms and backs projects that support abortion and in effect violates the country’s sovereignty, Sen. Vicente Sotto III said yesterday in the second installment of his four-part turno encontra speech.

Sotto said the USAID is the principal instrument to control and reduce population growth through birth control worldwide.”

Sotto said USAID funds researches on family planning and he added it would not be far-fetched that it also spins the results of the researches to favor the use of contraception.

“Last Monday, I mentioned that I will show how the RH Bill violates sovereignty. My point in stating that is we should not be pushed over by any state or international organizations in determining what is best for our country,” he said.

Sotto vows to prove the Reproductive Health (RH) bill has been significantly influenced by various organizations, both local and international, which are of doubtful character.

They have been pushing the passage of the bill to serve their ulterior motives far-off from the aims of the proponents of the bill, he added.

The sponsors of the measure openly admitted that the statistics used in the bill were obtained from various sources. The problem, however, is that the source of the funds to come up with these statistical data is USAID. It would not be far-fetched that the result of the funded studies would favor those who provided the funding, he said.

“The USAID, for the information of the body is the agency which the United States uses as its principal instrument to control and reduce the population through birth control worldwide. It is also the same agency which funded the Dhramendra Kumar Tyagi (DKT) which Sotto said is the largest manufacturer of condoms, pills and other contraceptives.

DKT wants developing countries including the Philippines to widely use condoms for obvious reasons, he added.

Sotto has pledged to stop the approval of the bill which has reached the period of amendments at the Senate while a counterpart bill is in the same stage at the House of Represenatatives.

Sotto also accused the World Health Organization and United Nations agencies of funding programs that promote contraceptives.

Sotto cited a September 2010 report of the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations International Children’s Educational Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and the World Bank, which estimated annual maternal deaths in the Philippines at 2,100 in 2008.

“That is equivalent to 5.75 deaths a day, which is way off from the 11 per day. This was clearly down from the 2000 level of 4,100, or 11.2 a day, which was published in a report seven years ago by the same international agencies,” he said.

It should be noted that the proponents’ population projections and maternal mortality ratios (MMRs), or deaths per 100,000 live births, came from a census conducted 11 years ago. The UN Population Division’s estimates were released just recently and, therefore, should be more reliable.

Sotto said proponents of the RH bill are saying that 11 Filipino women die every day when they talked about maternal mortality but he added they have not, however, supported this claim with accurate and consistent data.

Senator Pia Cayetano, a co-sponsor of the RH bill version in the Senate, earlier said she will rebut issues that Sotto will raise in his four-chapter privilege speech against the passage of the controversial Reproductive Health bill adding that many of the issues raised by Sotto have already been settled in previous interpellations.
Cayetano downplayed Sotto’s claim that the maternal mortality rate showing 11 mothers die per day has no basis.

”We have the statistics and in fact, we have submitted it. If some people choose not to believe it, well you can go out for yourselves and do the counting, but the statistics are there to show us that these are realities,” she said.
In the opening of his privilege speech opposing the RH bill last Monday, Sotto gave in to tears when he narrated that a son of his died due to weak heart after his wife used contraceptives but still got pregnant.

The lady senator approached Sotto after his speech to express her condolences on the 37th anniversary death of his son Vincent Paul who, as Sotto claimed, died five months after he was born on August 13, 1975 because of contraceptives.
”Anyone who lost a child deserves compassion,” she said.

Sotto mentioned in his privilege speech that Cayetano also lost a son but Cayetano clarified that her Gabriel died at the age of nine not due to contraceptives but to a rare chromosomal condition.

”Our experiences though are quite different because in his case, he attributes the illness and eventual death of his son to contraceptives and I shared with him that my experience was quite the opposite,” Cayetano said.
On Sotto’s claim that the RH bill does not conform with the Filipino culture, Cayetano explained that surveys show the Filipinos support its passage.

”Maybe it does not conform in our culture in 1521 or in 1898, but it’s 2012 now, and based on Filipino practices and customs, they want it and they need it,” she said. –Daily Tribune