Philippines health bill to promote artificial contraception is dividing nation

The Reproductive Health Bill which has been put forward in The Philippines is up for second reading at the House of Representatives and is expected to be one of the top agenda as Congress resumes its session on December 7, noted The Manila Times local newspaper this week. It aims to grant public funding to family planning methods using artificial contraceptives and sex education for students. It also gives access to reproductive health information to avoid unwanted and untimely pregnancies and maternal deaths to limit the country's population.

Abortion is illegal in the Philippines. Birth control and related health services have long been available to those who can afford to pay for them through the private medical system, but 70 percent of the population is too poor and depends on heavily subsidized care. In 1991, prime responsibility for delivering public health services shifted from the central government to the local authorities, who have broad discretion over which services are dispensed. The main opposition in this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country has come from the church and affiliated lay organizations, which say the proposed law would legalize abortion.

US offer of help

During her recent visit to the country, and aware of opposition to artificial contraception from groups including the Catholic Church, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said her government would leave it up to the Philippines to decide if it would accept Washington's offer of assistance in promoting planned parenthood and reproductive rights.

According to The Manila Times, saying that House Bill 5043 has been 'defanged and is now toothless,' the spouse of Lakas-Kampi Christian Muslim Democrat presidential candidate Gilberto 'Gibo' Teodoro Jr, has withdrawn her support for the controversial Reproductive Health Bill in the House of Representatives.

Representative Nikki Prieto-Teodoro of Tarlac, chairman of the House committee on the welfare of children, said the measure does not directly address the problem of poverty in the country where around 5,000 Filipinos are born daily, many of them to poor families. 'I don't want to give poor Filipinos, especially children, the false hope that this bill will solve the problem of poverty because it does not. I'd rather spend our meager resources in directly feeding the poor, clothing the naked, giving shelter to the poor and educating them so they grow up productive and independent,' she said.