Battling Global Population Control: The Philippine Experience

Delivered at the Moscow Demographic Summit,
World Congress of Families
Russian State Social University, Moscow, 29 June 2011

Unless we turn it back, assuming we still can, we shall soon face the cruelest winter of our lives, without any prospect of spring.

This is the demographic winter.

The question is---Can we still turn it back, or at least keep it from spreading to our respective corners of the earth?

We pray we still can.

But quite apart from what we are seeing today in Moscow, for which we most profusely thank and commend the World Congress of Families and its Russian collaborators, the evidence suggests that the global anti-population forces are determined to see this demographic winter spread to the last village on the equator.

I speak of my country, the Philippines.

We are an archipelago of 7,107 islands. We have a population of 95 million, growing at 1.9 percent a year. A labor force of 38 million, ten million overseas workers. One million more go abroad each year. The national median age is 22.7 years, among the youngest in the world.

We have far more young people than elderly; infinitely more grandchildren than grandparents. The average family size is five, yet you find many smaller and larger families around, extended ones with three generations living together under one roof. But rarely would you find the emerging European model of four grandparents sharing one grandchild.

Our population profile would read like a perfect pyramid, with a remarkably wide base of young people that tapers off smoothly upward as the population ages and begins to fall off. Indeed, the universe is vibrant and dynamic. A demographer’s delight, a joy to behold.

But we are poor. And that’s where all the problems arise. Like many of the world’s poor, we have stopped falling off like insects, and our total number continues to rise even after the birth rate has fallen to 1.9 percent. In theory, our population density stands at 317 per square km, but so many places are virtually uninhabited, and the major cities are among the world’s most crowded. Thus maldistribution, rather than oversize, is the problem.

But that is not how the population controllers see us. Once in Strasbourg, a distinguished member of the European Parliament chided me about all those Filipinos. Why so many? I said it was still a blessing that Filipinos continued to produce Filipinos, while many European countries could only receive migrants. But to them, the prospect of 150 million or so mostly poor Filipinos surviving modern plagues, natural calamities and bad government by 2050 is simply absurd. So they have targetted us for an intensive population reduction program.

This began sometime ago, when the first alarm was raised about the population bomb, before the 1974 Kissinger report saw the problem posed by the poor countries’ continued population growth to America’s strategic interests, and launched the global policy response to it. But not even that policy found it necessary to prescribe zero or negative population growth. All that has now changed.

Through a population cum reproductive health bill that has already divided our country, the usual foreign governments and funding agencies, multilateral institutions and foreign-funded NGOs are aggressively pressuring Congress to require all Filipino couples to practice birth control as an integral part of marriage, and to make the State the primary preventer of pregnancy. And not a few Filipino politicians are eager to lend themselves to this initiative.

The bill is publicly marketed as a necessary measure to guarantee women’s “right” to family planning. But it is a complete fraud. As no law prohibits it, everyone is free to contracept and get sterilized, and the national contraceptive prevalence rate now stands at 51 percent.

Since the seventies, the government has been doing population control, at the behest of external forces. A part of the national budget is appropriated for it year after year; at least two billion pesos is alloted for it this year. In addition, in the last few years, many cities and provinces have signed up with foreign governments and funding agencies to take their programs to the most innocent villages.

Assuming these programs could stand constitutional challenge, which is highly unlikely, they render the proposed law completely unnecessary and superfluous. Still the bill is being fast tracked ahead of any proposed legislation as though it were the most highly awaited solution to the country’s most pressing national problems, which are too numerous to enumerate.

The President has vowed to sign the bill into law, even before it has hurdled Congress, despite the deep resentment it has already caused, especially among the nation’s overwhelmingly Catholic majority, who believe the State has no business organizing the private lives of its citizens, especially their intimate marital and family lives.

In a moment of unguarded exuberance, the President has declared he is ready to get “excommunicated” for wanting to require the state to provide the public with birth control methods, which the Church condemns as intrinsically evil. The laws of the Church do not provide for the excommunication of a doctrinally-challenged president, but we continue to hope that the President does not make himself impeachable by culpably violating the Constitution he has sworn to protect and uphold.

The Philippine Constitution proclaims the family as “the foundation of the nation,” and marriage as “the foundation of the family”, and “an inviolable social institution.” It specifically commits the State to “protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution”, “defend the right of spouses to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions”, “equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception”, and defend the natural and primary right and duty of parents to be the primary educators of their children.

Going against all this, the bill is patently unconstitutional, void and tyrannical. It seeks to trample on the religious belief of the overwhelming majority of the population and require them, as taxpayers, to pay for the program that assaults their religious belief. The bill seeks to destroy not only the family but also the constitutional democratic state, which then becomes a totalitarian state. Ironically the violence is coming from reputedly the purest democratic sources.

The battle has just begun. Poised against us are the most powerful global forces determined to impose upon us what Pope Benedict XVI has called the “dictatorship of relativism,” which seeks to redefine and remake our human nature and our Christian culture, and civilization. But they shall not prevail.

Guided by truth, reason, the rule of law, and the common good, our people remain firm in their right and duty to be faithful to God and sovereign in their own country, even if their political leaders should all malfunction. They will oppose any unjust law that seeks to trample upon their fundamental human rights, their consciences, their culture, and their Constitution.

The RH Swindle 2

Editor's Note: This is a shorter version of the previous post, "The RH Swindle."

So many of our congressmen seem inclined to support the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, without regard to the Constitution, the religious beliefs, moral convictions and customs of their own people. They seem undisturbed that its passage could further divide our already divided nation.

They try to justify their stand by talking about every tangential issue, while evading the core issues, which will ultimately decide whether the bill could be enacted into a valid and enforceable law or not.

Contrary to the propaganda, the issue is not whether or not women (and men) should have “the right” to practice contraception and sterilization, and be “free” to use any method of their choice.

No law prohibits contraception or sterilization at all. Everyone is free to do it. They have been doing it since martial law, and the government and foreign donors have been funding it year after year. At least P2 billion is appropriated for RH this year. Some LGUs even have their own foreign-funded RH programs. The nation’s contraceptive prevalence rate now stands at 51 percent.

It is, therefore, one big swindle to say we need an RH law so women (and men) would have the “right” to use contraceptives, many of which are, in fact, abortifacient.

At the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, it was decided that the poor countries finally assume two-thirds of the cost of their RH programs, which until then was being borne mainly by the rich countries. Those costs were estimated at $20.5 billion in 2010, and $21.7 billion in 2015.

That could be one reason for the bill. But not even the ICPD prescribed, as proposed in the bill, that all married couples practice birth control as an integral part of marriage, regardless of their religious beliefs and moral convictions.

The proponents have shied away from all the fundamental questions. For instance, does the State have the right or the duty to organize the intimate private lives of its citizens? Can Congress enact the RH bill into law, or any bill for that matter, without regard to the moral law and the Constitution?

The mandate of Sec. 12, Article II of the Constitution is clear. “The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception. The natural and primary right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development of moral character shall receive the support of the Government.”

They have tried to dance around this constitutional policy by asking, “when does life begin?” That would be quite relevant if we were discussing abortion. But we are not, and the only relevant question here is this: If the duty of the State is to equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception, does it also have the right or the duty to run a program of contraception and sterilization whose purpose is to prevent conception?

Put differently, can the State be simultaneously the protector and the preventer of childbearing? Clearly, it can only be one or the other, but not both at the same time.

Likewise, if parents are the natural and primary educators of their children, can the State impose, as proposed in the bill, a compulsory sex education program on schoolchildren, from Grade V until fourth year high school, without parental consent? The answer is clear.

Now, Article XV “recognizes the Filipino family as the foundation of the nation,” and marriage “as an inviolable social institution,” “the foundation of the family.” It “shall be protected by the State.” Sec. 3 provides: “The State shall defend: (1) The right of spouses to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions and the demands of responsible parenthood.”

This is where Catholics and the others come in. They have every right to practice their respective faiths, and the State has the duty to protect such right.

I am a Catholic. I believe, with the Church, that contraception and sterilization are intrinsically evil. I try to practice what I believe. My friend, however, is of a different faith. He believes that contraception and sterilization are good for his health. Non-passage of the bill will not impair his “right” to contracept. It will not hurt the practice of his faith. But its passage will certainly hurt mine.

I do not want the State to act as the enforcer of my Catholic faith and compel my neighbor to believe what I believe. But the State cannot tell me to support, and with my tax money too, a program that attacks my faith. I would feel religiously persecuted, and would have every right, if not duty, to resist.

I may or may not march against the law. Nor call or join any call for civil disobedience. But the law would have no moral or constitutional basis. It would simply turn the Philippines into a totalitarian state. And the government would “lose its moral authority to govern,” in the words of the CBCP in February 1986.

The RH Swindle

We can all probably agree that respect for the Constitution, the moral convictions, religious beliefs, human dignity and solidarity of our people is indispensable to the health and wellbeing of the nation. And that no democratic government ever enacts a law that is certain to divide its people.

Yet never before have we seen so many Filipino politicians trying to savage that view, and further divide an already divided nation. All in the name of a foreign-dictated Reproductive Health (RH) bill.

Many of the debates, arranged or sponsored by the RH patrons and funders, have been one big swindle. Often moderated by the uninstructed and uninformed, they have tried to discuss every tangential issue, while evading the central issue that will ultimately decide whether the bill, if enacted into law, could bind anyone in conscience.

They have tried to scare us with all sorts of doomsday scenario about our birth rate of 1.9 percent, and the country’s population density of 313 per square km, which are quite healthy, without ever mentioning the plunging birth rates and the rapid ageing and dying in the developed countries, which constitute the real demographic crisis of our time.

They have tried to make us feel guilty that ten or so childbearing women are dying everyday for lack of proper obstetrics and maternal care, without showing the least concern for the far greater number of women (and men) dying everyday from cancer, heart disease, respiratory disease, diabetes, tuberculosis, and other diseases, without any medical or burial assistance from government.

Not every congressman or senator has read the RH bill. And not everyone who has read it has correctly understood its whys and wherefores. They say its purpose is “to protect the right” of women (and men) to decide whether or not to practice birth control and what method/s to use. But that is not true at all. It is patently false; a gross deception.

No law prohibits contraception or sterilization. Everyone is free to contracept or get sterilized on their own. No law distinguishes abortifacients from mere contraceptives either. A woman could commit abortion while ostensibly practicing contraception only. This has been so at least for the last 35 years.

Since the 1970s, the government has been funding what it now calls RH every year. At least P2 billion this year. Additionally, some LGUs are now implementing some foreign-funded RH programs. The constitutionality of these things has yet to be ruled on. But the nation’s contraceptive prevalence rate now stands at 51 percent and counting.

So what women’s “right” to contracept are they talking about? What need is there for this RH bill? We have the global population controllers and the contraceptives and abortion providers to thank for this bill.

At the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, it was decided that the poor countries should finally assume at least two-thirds of the cost of their RH programs, which until then had been borne mainly by the rich countries. This means two-thirds of $20.5 billion in 2010, and $21.7 billion in 2015, which were the cost estimates at the time. But not even the ICPD prescribed the totalitarian approach of the present bill.

The bill seeks to require all married couples to practice birth control as an integral part of marriage, regardless of their religious beliefs and moral convictions. This will revise the very nature and organic laws of marriage, an institution that precedes the State and whose primary purpose is the bearing and rearing of children.

Indeed, the bill will allow individuals to choose what method/s of birth control to use, but it wants all married couples and even unmarried individuals to be part of a state-run program of population control. It also wants to impose a mandatory sex education program on schoolchildren from Grade V until fourth year High School, without parental consent.

However, these points have been muted in the debates. The proponents have tried to dance around the real issues, and many of those against have been lured into joining the dance too. Thus we have discussed the side issues, but left untouched the central issue, namely, Does the State have the right or duty to organize the intimate private lives of its citizens? Can Congress enact the RH bill into law, or any bill for that matter, without regard to the moral law and the Constitution?

The mandate of Sec. 12, Article II of the Constitution is clear. It cannot be obscured. It needs no interpretation. “The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception. The natural and primary right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development of moral character shall receive the support of the Government.”

Some people, including some supposed theologians and constitutionalists, have tried to muddle this issue by asking, “when does life begin?” Is it upon “fertilization” of the egg, or upon “implantation”of the fertilized ovum? That would be quite relevant if we were discussing abortion, which we are not.

The only relevant issue here is this: If the duty of the State is to equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception, does it also have the right or the duty to run a program of contraception and sterilization whose purpose is to prevent conception and the birth of children?

Put another way, Can the State be simultaneously the protector and the preventer of childbearing? Clearly, the State can only be the one or the other, but not both at the same time.

Likewise, if parents are the natural and primary educators of their children, the State can only support, but not replace them in that role. It cannot, therefore, impose a compulsory sex education program on schoolchildren, without parental consent.

Now, Article XV “recognizes the Filipino family as the foundation of the nation,” and marriage “as an inviolable social institution,” “the foundation of the family.” It “shall be protected by the State.” Sec. 3 provides: “The State shall defend: (1) The right of spouses to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions and the demands of responsible parenthood.”

This is where the Catholics and other religious believers come in. They have to defend their basic human right to practice their own respective faiths. I am a Roman Catholic. I believe, with the Church, that contraception and sterilization are intrinsically evil, and I try to practice what I believe. My friend and neighbor, however, is of a different faith; he believes that contraception and sterilization are good for his health. The absence of an RH law has not impaired, and will not impair, his “right” to practice contraception and sterilization. It will not hurt the practice of his faith. But the passage of an RH law will certainly hurt mine.

I do not want the State to act as the enforcer of my Catholic faith, and compel my friend and neighbor to believe what I believe. But the State cannot tell me to abandon my belief either and support with my tax money a government program that attacks my religious belief. I would feel religiously persecuted, and I would have every right to resist.

I may or may not march against the law. I may or may not call or join any call for civil disobedience. But the so-called RH law would have no moral or constitutional basis and would not bind me or anyone else in conscience. With or without active resistance, the nation would be more deeply divided. It would turn the country into a totalitarian state. And the government would lose the moral authority to govern, in the language of the February1986 CBCP statement.

For these reasons, the House of Representatives would do well to simply archive the RH bill now, reorient and realign the present RH program and appropriation, retool the Department of Health and the Population Commission, and begin to mind our more authentic and pressing national concerns.

On The Passing of Bin Laden

Until we hear the next conspiracy theory, we will have to suspend any disbelief about what US President Barack Obama has said, that Osama bin Laden, the 54-year-old leader of al-Qaeda, was killed on May 2, 2011 (not earlier) by US Navy Seals (nobody else ) in his refuge in Abbotabad, a garrison town north of Islamabad in Pakistan (nowhere else).

It is the end of Osama, though not necessarily of al-Qaeda, nor the myths it had spawned. From 1992 to 2008, al-Qaeda was reported to have staged at least 30 terrorist attacks in various parts of the world with at least 4,396 killed. A list published by The Economist (May 7, 2011) includes an explosion aboard a Philippine ferry vessel, which killed 116 passengers in February 2004, but which the public had been made to believe was pure accident. Shouldn’t Filipinos be told the whole truth about it?

Still by far the biggest incident was the September 11, 2001 attack on the three skyscrapers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon building in Virginia, which killed approximately 3,000 people, and triggered the war on terror that made going through US immigration a real experience and got the US deeply enmeshed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Unconvinced, some conspiracy theorists have dismissed the 9/11 attack as a false flag. One theory online pokes fun at how a 44-year-old former CIA asset, sitting inside a cave in Afghanistan, could have run the operation where four hijacked aircraft, piloted by 19 flight school dropouts, flew around the world’s most secure airspace for nearly two hours, unopposed by any of the 35 in-range US Air Force bases, then brought down the three skyscrapers and rammed a jet into the Pentagon building without drawing any kind of anti-aircraft fire.

Outside of 9/11, no fire of any kind had ever caused a steel-framed high-rise building to collapse, the article says. In 1988, Los Angeles’s worst fire ever destroyed several floors of the First Interstate Bank, but left the main steel structure intact. In 1991, an 18-hour fire gutted eight floors of Philadelphia’s One Meridian Plaza without damaging the granite. In 2005, Madrid’s Windsor Building burned like a torch for 20 hours, reaching temperatures of 1,400 degrees Farenheit, but it took six months after the fire to take apart the burnt structure piece by piece.

By contrast, the WTC skyscrapers, with 58 steel perimeter columns and 25 steel core columns, collapsed simultaneously at 5:20 p.m. (9/11). The third skyscraper was not even hit by a plane, the article notes.

Before 9/11, the problem was how to dismantle the twin towers floor by floor in order to remove the vast quantities of cancer-causing asbestos that had gone into the construction in the seventies. Not only did the expected cost look astronomical, the Port Authority was also prohibited from doing demotion work that would release carcinogenic asbestos dust all over New York. Despite that, Larry Silverstein made a $3.2 billion bid for the building in January 2001, then took out an insurance policy that covered everything, including terrorist attack. Since 9/11 Silverstein has collected $5 billion from nine insurance companies, the article says.

The US Navy buried bin Laden’s body at sea from the nuclear-powered carrier USS Carl Vinson and chose not to overwhelm the world with close-ups of the unarmed Osama shot in the head. They wanted to avoid anything that might rekindle terrorist passion among the surviving jihadis. The next step is to “isolate Mr. bin Laden’s savage jihad,” and “kill his dream,” writes The Economist.

In Manila, the government welcomed the USS Carl Vinson at port. President Benigno Aquino III, accompanied by the secretaries of foreign affairs, defense and finance and the chief of staff of the armed forces, toured the aircraft carrier while it was still in the high seas. Apparently the presidential party and their hosts had fun on board, but nobody else.

Some academics worry that the presidential tour and the ship’s portcall could be viewed as a provocation, which could invite a terrorist response. Given our raging Islamic insurgency in the South, and the possibility that bin Laden might still have a few sympathizers out there, it is not clear what kind of political math was used to show that these things were in the national interest.

For reasons of protocol alone, that presidential tour should not have taken place at all. The aircraft carrier and the cargo plane that took the presidential party to the carrier were both extensions of US territory, and it is not right for the president of a sovereign country, who is not on a US state or official visit, to be there. Any junior DFA officer knew that. Moreover, USS Carl Vinson is a nuclear-powered, possibly nuclear-armed vessel, if not a nuclear weapon itself. And “the Philippines, consistent with the national interest, adopts and pursues a policy of freedom from nuclear weapons in its territory,” according to Section 8, Article II of the Constitution.

These incidents could have created quite a storm in the days of Senators Claro M. Recto, Lorenzo Tanada, Jose Wright Diokno, and even Benigno Aquino Jr. Luckily for President Noynoy, the Senate foreign relations committee and the usual pundits seem completely at sea on the subject, and the sloganeering “nationalists” are just too busy trying to inflict a toxic reproductive health (RH) agenda upon the country at the behest of their foreign patrons and the global suppliers of contraceptives, sterilization agents, and abortion services.

Clustering The Cabinet

On May 13, President Noynoy Aquino issued Executive Order No. 43, “Pursuing Our Social Contract with the Filipino People Through the Reorganization of the Cabinet Clusters.” The Cabinet needs to be organized thematically into smaller groups, or clusters, to achieve “efficiency, effectiveness and focus,” the EO says.

There are five clusters: Good Governance and Anti-Corruption, chaired by the President; Human Development and Poverty Reduction, chaired by the Department of Social Welfare and Development Secretary; Economic Development, chaired by the Finance Secretary; Security, Justice and Peace, chaired by the Executive Secretary; and Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, chaired by the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources.

The idea is laudable. Clustering will allow Departments with the same or closely related concerns to work closely together in-between Cabinet meetings, which should take place regularly once a week, as in most governments. There is the danger, though, that the clusters could try to replace the Cabinet itself, and do away with the regular Cabinet meetings. This should not happen. The Cabinet should always function in full, under the control of the President.

Making the President chair one cluster, no matter how important that cluster may be, effectively downgrades the President to the position of a mere Cabinet member. It effectively reduces the Cabinet to that one cluster chaired by the President or raises that particular cluster to the level of the entire Cabinet, at the expense of the other clusters. That can and should be avoided.

Each cluster should be chaired by the Cabinet member with immediate jurisdiction over the cluster’s primary area of responsibility. Its members should be ranked according to their respective jurisdictions and the Order of Precedence followed when listing Cabinet members. This seemingly unimportant detail is not trivial at all.

For instance, the Secretary of Justice and the Secretary of Finance should have precedence over the Budget Secretary in the listing of members of the Good Governance and Anti-Corruption Cluster. Likewise, the Secretaries of Agriculture, Energy, Science and Technology and Tourism, given their inherent responsibilities, should have due precedence in the Economic Development Cluster.

The DSWD Secretary may have a broader responsibility than the Chair of Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) for Human Development and Poverty Reduction, given her control of, among other things, the P21.9 billion conditional cash transfer, which is supposed to be an anti-poverty fund.

But since the HUDCC Chair happens to be the Vice President --- the second highest ranking official of the country and the only nationally elected official sitting in the Cabinet---he cannot be made to sit under the DSWD Chair without doing offense to the dignity of the State. The DSWD Secretary could co-chair the cluster of the Vice President.

The Security, Justice and Peace Cluster has, as its primary responsibility, “the protection of our national territory and boundaries.” This should be chaired by the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, possibly with the Secretary of National Defense as co-chair.

The Executive Secretary performs a highly critical function for the President. He should be represented in all clusters so that he could monitor, coordinate and digest all developments for the President, without having to wait for the regular Cabinet meeting, which should never be dispensed with at all.

A particular Department or Cluster may take the lead in proposing or implementing a particular course of action on any given question. But a Cabinet decision is always made by the Cabinet in formal Cabinet meetings. A government can repeal or rewrite this process only at its own peril.

Remembering Blessed John Paul II

Rome--Undaunted by forecasts of foul weather, the mammoth crowd of all nations filled St. Peter’s Square all the way down to the street above the Tiber on May 1, for the beatification of Pope John Paul II. They came prepared for a heavy downpour, but not a drop of rain fell as Pope Benedict XVI beatified his immediate predecessor, who died on April 2, 2005 after a long pontificate of  nearly 27 years.

Many saw it as yet another sign from the new blessed who, as the 263^rd successor to Peter, had tried to spread so much faith, hope and love to billions of people. Most of the pilgrims had come from Poland, where the new blessed was born as Karol Josef Wojtyla on May 18, 1920, and had served the Church until he became pope on October 16, 1978.  But each of the 104 countries he had visited as pope was assuredly represented in the Square.   

From the pope’s death to his beatification, it was by far the fastest such process in modern history. It took but six years and 27 days, surpassing by 17 days that of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta who died on September 9, 1997 and was beatified by  Pope John Paul II himself on October 19, 2003.  But counted from the start of the process (1999)  to  the beatification itself,  Mother Teresa holds the fastest record of only four years.   

Pope John Paul II had helped to make that possible by waiving (in 1999) the usual five-year waiting period after the holy person’s death before the process could begin. Pope Benedict XVI did the same thing for his predecessor by waiving the five-year waiting period, 26 days after his death.  Then Camillio Cardinal Ruini, vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, formally opened the process on June 28, 2005.   

The speed of the process seemed to correspond to the strong public clamor of “santo subito” (sainthood immediately) heard during the wake and funeral mass at St. Peter’s Square in 2005. But it would not have been possible if John Paul II had not lived the Christian virtues in a heroic way, and if at least one miracle, in this case the inexplicable cure of the French nun Marie Simon-Pierre Normand of Parkinson’s disease, had not been attributed to his intercession.  In any case, so many people had long regarded him as a saint even before his death.  

Throughout the celebration,  the crowd was asked to avoid applause and flag-waving and observe prayerful silence. But people literally choked with emotion and broke into tears as the Holy Father pronounced the words of beatification and the Blessed’s giant portrait was unveiled above him. 

At least 16 heads of state and 87 official delegations were reported to have attended. Even Zimbabwe’s highly controversial President Robert Mugabe came, just as he did in 2005 when he, like then Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and so many others, attended John Paul II’s funeral. But this time there was no high-level state representation from the Philippines, which the late Pontiff had visited twice, in 1981 and in 1995.   

Philippine church participation was led by Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales and Cebu’s Archbishop Emeritus Ricardo Cardinal Vidal who both concelebrated the Mass with Pope Benedict XVI.  They were joined by  Archbishop Emeritus of Zamboanga Carmelo Morelos, Archbishop of San Fernando, Pampanga Paciano Aniceto, Archbishop Fernando Capalla of Davao, Archbishop Ramon Arguelles of Lipa, Batangas, Bishop Emeritus of Daet Benjamin Almoneda, Bishop Manolo de los Santos of Virac, and Bishop Antonio Tobias of Novaliches, and numerous priests.

At a press conference organized by the Pontificio Collegio Filippino (PCF) rector Father Gregory Gaston on May 2, Cardinal Rosales spoke of the impact of the beatification on the Philippines. Together with Bishop Almoneda, and Father Vicente Cajilig, O.P., a consultant of the Federation of Asian Bishop’s Conference, I was asked to join, and contribute my layman’s perspective on the beatification.

I have the most beautiful personal memories of that great Pope. With my wife, I had the privilege of meeting him at least ten times, and kneeling for over an hour near his catafalque inside St. Peter’s before his funeral. But what moves me most  is his life of holiness as Servant of the servants of God, the work he did and the suffering he bore to prepare the Church for the third millennium. 

Through his 14 encyclicals, 15 apostolic exhortations, 11 apostolic constitutions, 45 apostolic letters, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the reforms of the Eastern and Western Codes of Canon Law and of the Roman Curia, his personal writings, his pastoral visits to 104 countries and to 146 places in Italy, not to mention the 317 of his  333 parishes in Rome, his bold thrust at dialogue with the other religions, and above all his personal witness, he gave us, in Pope Benedict XVI’s words, the strength to believe in---and to be one with---Christ.  

In Tertio Millennio Aveniente (1994) and Novo Millennio Ineunte, he anticipated to us the manifold challenges and opportunities of the new millennium.  

As the pope for human life, marriage, the family, women and the youth, he labored tirelessly to promote the culture of life, breaking new ground in Evangelium Vitae, Veritatis Splendor, Familaris Consortio, Magnum Matrimonii Sacramentum, Mulieris Dignitatem, his World Meetings of Families and World Youth Days.  

He elaborated on the real meaning and value of labor in Laborem Exercens in a way no progressive mind had done before him or since. He enlarged our vision of our social concerns in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, Centesimus Annus and related utterances and writings.

He deepened the laity’s understanding of their role in the Church in Christifideles Laici; and that of the clergy and the religious in Fidei Depositum, Pastor Bonus, Pastores Gregis, Vita Consecrata, Pastores Dabo Vobis, Misericordia Dei, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.  

He foresaw the moral relativism that would engulf our materialistic global society, and set the standards by which faith and reason should deal with each other in Fides et Ratio, a theme which Pope Benedict XVI has since carried forward with his eloquent call for the mutual purification of faith and reason.

Many Filipinos recall with profound gratitude that Blessed John Paul II created the first Filipino saint, St. Lorenzo Ruiz, in 1987, and beatified Pedro Calungsod in 2000.  He also created two outstanding Filipino cardinals---Ricardo J. Cardinal Vidal, now Archbishop Emeritus of Cebu, and Jose T. Cardinal Sanchez,  former Secretary of the Congregation of the Evangelization of Peoples, and now Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Clergy----the first and so far only Filipino cleric ever to head a dicastery of the Roman Curia.  At 91, the cardinal has given up his Vatican residence and offered to do whatever he can to help strengthen the pastoral life of the Church in the Philippines.   

My own undimmed memory of the new blessed is that of the immaculately garbed pilgrim pope kissing the ground at the Manila international airport and greeting the Filipinos in his rich booming voice, “I come in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose servant I am.” And then proclaiming to the biggest human assembly ever gathered on earth, up to that time, that “you are the light of Asia and the world!”  

It would seem to me an utter lack of gratitude if we fail to make that light burn as brightly as it should, in the face of the savage threat to extinguish it from the reproductive forces of darkness.   

The Making of an Unjust Law

1. Six bills in the House of Representatives---HB Nos. 96, 101, 513, 1160, 1520 & 3387---half of them titled, An Act Providing For A National Policy on Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood And Population And Development and For Other Purposes, have been consolidated by the House Committee on Population and Family Relations into a substitute bill titled, An Act Providing For A Comprehensive Policy On Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health, And Population And Development, And For Other Purposes. The bill will shortly be reported out by the Committee on Second Reading for floor debates.

2. Is it a different bill? Less objectionable? Does it stand on firmer constitutional and legal ground?

No, it is the same dog with a different collar. Although dressed a little differently, it is just as constitutionally infirm and dangerous as the original.

3. Let me show it.

a) Sec. 2 -- Declaration of Policy provides: “The State recognizes and guarantees the universal basic human right to reproductive health by all
persons, particularly of parents, couples and women, consistent with
their religious convictions, cultural beliefs and the demands of
responsible parenthood. Toward this end, there shall be no
discrimination against any person on grounds such as sex, age, religion,
sexual orientation, disabilities, political affiliation and ethnicity.”

This is misleading, to say the least. For while there ought to be a basic human right to reproductive health, properly understood, there cannot be a universal right to reproductive health, given the way “reproductive health”is defined in the bill, and the wide public official articulation by some international actors (pace US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and WHO) to the effect that “reproductive health includes access to abortion.”

And while the Declaration speaks of the “human right to reproductive health by all persons, consistent with their religious convictions, cultural beliefs and the demands of responsible parenthood,” the bill requires the members of the most numerous Church -–the Catholics-- who reject contraception and sterilization as intrinsically evil, to support with their tax money the promotion of the same intrinsic evil. There can be no more patent and violent act of discrimination.

b) Sec. 3 -- “Guiding Principles”—provides: “(a) Freedom of choice, which is central to the exercise of the right, must be fully guaranteed by the State.” There is nothing wrong with that statement, except that putting it there is superfluous, since no law prohibits anyone from exercising such “freedom;” the Department of Health (DOH) and the Population Commission (POPCOM) have been running a reproductive health program since the early 70s, in violation of the prolife, post-Marcos Constitution since President Corazon Aquino promulgated it in 1987; women and men are freely contracepting and getting sterilized; and the contraceptive prevalence rate is already 51 percent and counting.

c) There is an unremitting effort to make it appear that the main purpose and thrust of the bill is to guarantee everyone’s “human right of reproductive health.” That is how the public debate on the RH bill has been framed from the very beginning. But it is deceptive and misleading. That “right” is unthreatened and undisturbed; everyone is “free” to contracept or get sterilized.

THE REAL PURPOSE OF THE BILL IS TO PRESCRIBE AND PROMOTE UNIVERSAL BIRTH CONTROL FOR ALL MARRIED COUPLES THROUGH AN OFFICIAL PROGRAM FUNDED AND RUN BY THE STATE AND ALL ITS AGENCIES AND INSTRUMENTALITIES.

Thus, Section 18 provides: “No marriage license shall be issued by the Local Civil Registrar unless the applicants present a Certificate of Compliance issued for free by the Local Family Planning Office certifying that they had duly received adequate instructions and information on family planning, responsible parenthood, breastfeeding and infant nutrition.”

In paragraph three, the Declaration of Policy “guarantees universal access to medically-safe, legal, affordable, effective and quality reproductive health care services, methods, devices, supplies and relevant information and education.”

Sec. 10 provides: “Products and supplies for modern family planning methods shall be part of the National Drug Formulary and the same shall be included in the regular purchase of essential medicines and supplies of all national and local hospitals and other government health units.”

Sec. 11 provides: “The DOH shall spearhead the efficient procurement, distribution to Local Government Units (LGUs) and usage-monitoring of family planning supplies for the entire country. The DOH shall coordinate with all appropriate LGUs to plan and implement this procurement and distribution program…”

d) The bill requires the State to “promote, without bias, all effective
natural and modern methods of family planning that are medically safe
and legal.” But it fails to appreciate the fact that natural family planning is centered on the exercise of periodic continence by couples during the woman’s fertile period and does not at all involve contraception. And while the bill contains ample provisions for the procurement, acquisition and distribution of facilities and supplies for artificial methods of contraception and sterilization, it says nothing about the development, procurement, acquisition and deployment of skills for natural family planning. That renders highly suspect, if not downright fraudulent, the phrase “without bias” in the above-quoted provision. The bias is clear and unmistakable in favor of artificial methods of contraception and sterilization.

e) Sec. 3 (k) provides: “There shall be no population targets and the mitigation of the population growth rate is incidental to the promotion of reproductive health and sustainable development.”

This is another suspicious, if not downright fraudulent, statement. What population growth rate is there to mitigate? The annual population growth rate is now 1.9 percent, and declining . The total population stands at 95 million or so, not on account of a high birth rate but simply because people have stopped dying like flies. The country’s population density is 313 per square km, but urbanization has created super-congested cities like Manila with a population density of more than 43,000 per square km. For all this, the country has a younger and more dynamic workforce than that of at least 107 other countries. The median age is 22.70 years while that of most of the developed countries is in the 40’s, with Monaco on top at 45.50 years, followed by Japan and Germany at 43.50 and 43 years respectively. The real global problem is the irreversible ageing and shrinking of the population that began in Europe and is spreading to the rest of the rich countries. In the industrial West, America alone has been able to keep a healthy population growth, despite widespread abortion and contraceptives. From 1900 to 2000, the US posted a population growth rate of 270 percent as against Russia’s 4 percent. But largely because of foreign migration rather than a robust birth rate.

f) Sec. 20 provides: “The State shall assist couples, parents and individuals to achieve their desired family size within the context of responsible parenthood for sustainable development and encourage them to have two children as the ideal family size. Attaining the ideal family size is neither mandatory nor compulsory. No punitive action shall be imposed on parents having more than two children.”

What authority or competence does Congress or the State have to decide “the ideal family size?” This is a throwback to the original prescription contained in the 1974 Kissinger Report, also known as National Study Memorandum 200, intended to preserve America’s overall strategic advantage over the rest of the world. This matter should be left solely in the hands of the couple without the intervention of the State. A mere suggestion of it in any law is coercion enough, even in its subtlest form.

g) Among the proposed justifications for the bill, Sec. 3 (m) provides: “The limited resources of the country cannot be suffered to be spread so thinly to service a burgeoning multitude that makes the allocations grossly inadequate and effectively meaningless.”

Rarely, if ever, do we encounter an argumentative and polemical construction of this nature in any proposed legislation. It gives one the impression that even the crafting of laws has not been spared from the language of ideological propaganda, and that the Philippines is now a super welfare state that must provide for every want of its most assertive citizens, even though it is unable to provide for the real needs of the poor. At the same time it is a shameful admission that we have not yet heard about the human mind being the ultimate creator of wealth, and would rather have the State use its naked power to reduce the population than use our brains to produce more food, shelter, clothing, education, health care, etc. for all.

There are many ways of addressing this resource issue. The RH bill is not one of them. If only official corruption in all branches and layers of government were at least halved, all crooks jailed and their ill-gotten wealth recovered and used wisely by the State; if only the irresponsible automatic servicing of the country’s long overpaid loans were prudently reexamined and rationalized, and the priorities of the physical economy given the proper attention they deserve, there would be more than enough money for all the necessary social services, and we wont have to beg for doleouts from donor governments and institutions whose primary interest is to paganize our Christian civilization and promote the anti-culture of death.

4. Why is the RH bill constitutionally infirm and dangerous?

a) The bill seeks to legislate a moral evil into the lives of Filipinos. Contraception and sterilization are, at the very least, offenses against chastity, which is a universal human virtue, not just a virtue for Catholics. Contraception and sterilization not only promote promiscuity; they also render continence superfluous and put the dignity of the human person, the dignity of the transmission of human life, and the human capacity to love at risk (Rhonheimer). The Nuremberg military tribunal of 1945-46 condemned the contraception, sterilization and abortion imposed by the Nazis on conquered populations as a crime against humanity. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide of 1948 and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court of 1998 both condemn as “genocide” certain “measures to prevent births within a group.” So it is one thing for private individuals today to contracept or get themselves sterilized, but quite another for the non-totalitarian state to prescribe or sponsor contraception or sterilization for any part of the citizenry. That would bring us closer to Nazi Germany.

b) To propose that we take a morally neutral view on contraception and sterilization is to propose that we “remove an entire area of human behavior from regulation of the moral law” (Rhonheimer), which can only have the most disastrous consequences on the morality of human acts. Granted, arguendo, that one could momentarily avoid looking at contraception and sterilization as intrinsically evil, does the State have the right or the duty to organize the private lives of its citizens and prescribe and promote contraception and sterilization as a necessary component of married life? Nothing gives the State that right or that duty; it cannot do so without turning into a totalitarian state. Even for the RH proponents that is too high a price to pay.

c) The RH bill addresses itself to every Filipino not merely as a citizen but first and above all as a human person in all his or her dignity. We must respond to it in the fullness of our being by declaring that the fundamental right and duty of married couples to beget children is not subject to the legislative jurisdiction of Congress or the police power of the State.

d) Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J., who had a hand in writing the present Constitution, predicts the RH bill would become law, and that it would be “the product of the exercise of police power.” We should always be grateful for the little droppings we get from our constitutional experts, but it seems to me that if the State cannot invoke its police power to order the jobless and the homeless to go back to the provinces in order to decongest our Metro Manila cities that are now among the world’s 50 most congested cities, it cannot invoke “police power” to tell married couples how to make love inside their bedroom so as not to add one more child to the 95 million Filipinos maldistributed around the country and abroad. My guess is that even our Justices of the Supreme Court see this very clearly.

e) The real constitutional issue is this. Section 12, Article II of the Constitution provides: “The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception. The natural and primary right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development of moral character shall receive the support of the Government.”

Some people have succeeded in confusing themselves and others too by raising the issue, when does conception take place? Upon fertilization or upon implantation? That is an important issue, especially when you are discussing abortion. But for now that is a separate issue altogether. The only relevant question is this: “If the duty of the State is to protect the life of the unborn from conception, does it have the right or the duty to run or fund a program whose purpose is to prevent even just one solitary woman from conceiving a child?”

The first principle of speculative reason is instructive: a thing cannot be and not be at the same time. The State cannot be a provider of contraceptives or sterilization agents for anyone while being the protector of the life of the unborn from conception. The RH bill therefore is null and void ab initio, insofar as this issue is concerned.

Likewise, because parents are the natural and primary educators of their children, the State cannot impose a mandatory sex education program on schoolchildren from Grade Five up to Fourth Year High School without parental consent. The State’s duty is to help and support the parents in the exercise of their right and in the discharge of their duty, but never to replace them or to preempt them.

The word from Congress is that the pro-RH bloc is determined to pass the bill into law, just because “they have the numbers.” They are apparently heartened by Fr. Bernas’s confident forecast on how the Supreme Court would respond to any petition questioning its constitutionality. I do not share that sentiment. I am convinced the measure is oppressive beyond being merely unconstitutional, insofar as the points I have raised here are concerned. I am excluding the ornamental provisions on maternal death review, midwives for skilled attendance, emergency obstetric care, mobile health care service (provided they are not used to deliver contraceptives, sterilization agents and abortifacients), all of which can be implemented as part of the regular DOH program even without any legislation.

Were all the members of Congress to vote for the bill in its present form, that vote would not produce a law that could or should bind in conscience. It would be an unjust law, which the people would have a right, if not a duty, to resist. “For the ultimate authority of the law does not derive from its being an expression of the will of party or people. Its binding force does not come from popular consent (nor is it removed by popular dissent). It comes from justice. A law does not have more authority because it is approved by many, or less because it is enacted by a few, or even by only one. A just measure ought to be obeyed---i.e. it carries authority; an unjust measure ought to be resisted ---it lacks authority---even if it is backed by a landslide majority. A just law binds as much in a democracy as in a totalitarian state; an unjust law binds in neither” (Cormac Burke, Authority and Freedom in the Church).

As Pope Benedict XVI sees it, “people will revolt against the law whenever it is perceived no longer as the expression of a justice that is at the service of all, but rather as a product of despotism, of an arrogance that is clothed in the garments of law by those who have the power to do so.” For there are things that can never be legalized, the Pope writes, some things that always remain wrong, just as there are some things that absolutely always remain legally binding, things that precede every majority decision, things that majority decisions must respect (Joseph Ratzinger, Values In A Time Of Upheaval).

It is time for every worthy member of Congress to reflect a little more deeply on the true meaning of human life, human dignity, human love, and the law, as an ordinance of reason for the common good promulgated by him who has the care of the community. And it is time for the President of the Philippines to convey to Congress and to the nation that he is prepared to defend our prolife Constitution, which is his mother’s only enduring legacy to the nation, even at the risk of denying the powerful multilateral lobby seeking the moral and intellectual recolonization of the Philippines.

STATEMENT ON THE REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH BILL

Given to the Committee on Population and Family Relations,
House of Representatives, 24 November 2010

FRANCISCO S. TATAD
Former Senate Majority Leader
Board Member, International Right to Life Federation, Cincinnati, Ohio;
World Youth Alliance, New York, NY


There are six bills before the Committee. Three bills bear the same title---AN ACT PROVIDING FOR A NATIONAL POLICY ON REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH, RESPONSIBLE PARENTHOOD AND POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES. The other three have slightly different titles. But it may not be inaccurate to say that the six bills are six versions of the same Reproductive Health (RH) bill. To simplify matters, I shall simply speak of “the bill” as though they had been consolidated into one.

This bill continues to be described as a health bill. But while the old bill had been under the primary jurisdiction of the Health Committee, with secondary referrals, the present bill has been referred to the Population Committee, and to no other. This invites some curiousity, but it allows the public to see that this is essentially a population control bill.

The bill has two major, shall we say core, proposals, namely:

1. To make the State the official provider of contraceptives and sterilization agents to the public: these, to be distributed as essential medicines in all national and local hospitals and other government health units; and

2. To impose a mandatory sex education on all schoolchildren from Grade V to 4th year High School, without parental consent.

The proponents have given us a long litany of reasons why these proposals are being made. First, they say they want to guarantee women’s right to an “informed choice” on the use of contraceptives and sterilization agents. But that isn’t quite so. There is no law that prohibits anyone from contracepting and getting sterilized, so they are freely contracepting and getting sterilized, and the national contraceptive prevalence rate is at least 51 percent. Then there are the economic, social, demographic reasons. They may not all be bad economics, sociology or demographics. But the solution to the problems they describe is not in the bill, which could instead create worse problems than it proposes to solve.

The first problem with the bill is that it directly invades the natural, private, and inviolate sanctuary of the family, which our Constitution describes as the foundation of the nation, and which in turn is founded on the inviolable social institution of marriage. The family is the basic unit of society; it precedes both the society and the State. It has rights that do not emanate from any political authority and are far beyond the authority of the State to abridge or regulate.

The married couple’s right to bear children is not only a God-given right. It is above all a God-given duty, given to the first man at the dawn of Creation in Genesis (1:28): “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.” (I believe Congressman Manny Pacquiao, the finest world boxing champion of our time, and the only world-class celebrity in this Congress, recently referred to this in a press conference here in the House.)

But in giving man and woman the duty and “right to procreate”--- the word “reproduce” was reserved for the lower animals--- God, who sees everything before it happens, did not tell husband and wife what to do before, during and after sexual intercourse; He left that to the loving couple’s good judgment, but He left no doubt that he meant business when, while sparing Cain after the murder of Abel, he took away Onan’s life for spilling his seed instead of fully honoring his brother’s widow. Now the RH bill proposes to make contraception and sterilization an institutional component of marriage, and the State as the official and ultimate supplier of contraceptives and sterilization agents.

This raises one overarching prejudicial question, which precedes any discussion of the merits or lack thereof of the proposals being made. The question is this: Congress may pass no law abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances. The government may not tell a journalist, a broadcaster or a Member of Congress what to say on anything, how to say it, and how much time to use in saying it. Does the State now have the right and authority to abridge the most fundamental right of married couples, and instruct them what to do, in the privacy of their bedrooms, before, during, and after sexual intercourse? I am sure we can all agree it does not. Now, does Congress have the right or the authority to give the State a power it does not have and which it has not been so constituted to possess?

“The Philippines is a democratic and republican state” (Art II, Sec 1, Constitution). Its powers are limited, not absolute. Those powers do not allow it to reach into the most intimate sanctuary of the private lives of its citizens. It can only does so by turning totalitarian and arrogating unto itself the power of God. So I raise the overarching question: Does the Philippine State have the right or the authority to instruct married couples what to do in the privacy of their bedrooms, before, during and after sexual intercourse? Does Congress have the right or the authority to give the State a power it does not have and which it has not been so constituted to possess?

My answer to both questions is no, and I trust the Committee and the Congress have the same answer too. Assuming their answer is in the affirmative, I now propose the next question: Can the Constitution, properly understood, lend validity to the RH proposals? What exactly do I mean?

Well, Section 12 of Article II of the Constitution provides: “The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception. The natural and primary right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development of moral character shall receive the support of the Government.”

The first part , which guarantees State protection for the life of the unborn, is an outright ban on abortion. It is also a ban on state-contraception and sterilization, as distinguished from contraception and sterilization with no state participation. Why so? Because the State cannot possibly protect the life of the unborn from conception while simultaneously engaged in a program of contraception and sterilization whose purpose is to prevent women from conceiving. The two actions are contradictory; they cannot co-exist at the same time; either we uphold the Constitution or welcome the totalitarian state.

But, the Constitution does not define conception, we are told. When does it happen? We say upon fertilization, others say upon implantation. That is not at issue now and we need not resolve it here. But at whatever point conception takes place----whether upon ferilization or upon implantation----the duty of the State to protect the life of the unborn is constant, it does not change. Women could contracept and get sterilized on their own and in so doing deprive the State of unborn life to protect. But the State cannot on its own engage in contraception and sterilization and say that its duty to protect the life of the unborn from conception is limited to those who will get past its program of contraception and sterilization, if any. That would be absurdity on stilts, and it could not be part of any reasonably sane constitution. That is why the State cannot be part of any such program of contraception and sterilization. If that is not clear enough, I hope we would have the time outside of this Committee hearing to demonstrate it further in the plainest, most illustrative language possible.

The same with mandatory sex education. If parents are the natural and primary educators of their children, what right has the State to impose a mandatory sex education on minor school children without parental consent? Because the parents are unable or unwilling to perform their duty? Whatever the reason, the constitutional duty of the Government is to support, not replace, the parents. State takeover of parents’ rights and duties happens only in totalitarian states, and we do not need to get there.

Finally, is there need to provide for a national policy on reproductive health, responsible parenthood and population development? Congress provides a policy on anything if and when such a policy is needed, and no such policy yet exists. Now, the term “reproductive health” is a new coinage, and is not a univocal term: WHO, the various UN agencies, the G-8 if not G-20, and especially the US Secretary of State say the term includes “access to abortion,” while the proponents of the RH bill tell us it does not include “access to abortion.” As far as that goes, we do not yet have a validly legislated “RH policy.” But we have been carrying an appropriation for RH in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for years, and P2 billion has been appropriated for it this year. How have we been able to do so without a policy in place?

Indeed, there is a policy, and there is a program, except that both are patently unconstitutional. And there is the constitutional policy, if not policies, in Article II, and Article XV of the Constitution, related to child-bearing, parenting, youth and women, other aspects of family life, health, population development, etc. ---the very things sought to be covered by the bill, except that the term “reproductive health” is not used for the reason earlier stated.

The duty of Congress is to implement the non-self-enforcing constitutional policy with an enabling act, not replace it with a new policy which, in this case, is in direct opposition to what the Constitution provides. The RH bill cannot possibly fly, even on this lone objection alone, so long as the Constitution is not cavalierly set aside. To swamp us with sheer numbers without regard to truth and reason is simply mob rule, not lawmaking, which always begins with truth and reason for the common good.

I admire the apparent resolve to fast-track this bill. But these efforts would certainly bear good constitutional fruit if they were directed at complying with the policies spelled out in the Constitution, and by deleting the unconstitutional appropriation for RH in the present budget, and reorienting and reorganizing, if not abolishing altogether, the Population Commission.

Thank you for listening.