House leaders vow to push reproductive health bill

MANILA, Philippines – Despite President Arroyo’s preference for natural family planning, congressmen will push for the enactment of the Reproductive Health Bill that offers the use of contraceptives as one of the means to plan one’s family.

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, one of the bill’s principal authors, said yesterday the proposed population management law “is firmly anchored on freedom of informed choice.”

“The President clearly favors natural family planning as her endorsed method of choice,” he said.

“While the President’s choice deserves respect, it should in no way deter reproductive health advocates in Congress from pursuing the enactment of a comprehensive, rights-based and national policy on reproductive health and family planning,” he said.

He pointed out that freedom of choice “will be enhanced and truly promoted by providing women and couples information and access to the full range of family planning options from the natural to modern methods.”

“Providing only one method to the detriment of all the rest dilutes the freedom of informed choice. Widening women’s and couples’ choices will help them decide more intelligently on what method to use to plan and space their children,” he stressed.

He cited studies showing that 36 percent of Filipinos prefer modern birth control methods, while only 15 percent favor natural family planning.

Lagman earlier blamed the government’s failure to pursue a clear population management policy for the country’s burgeoning population, which he said is hindering economic growth.

Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr., a former three-term congressman, has endorsed the enactment of the Lagman bill.

The insistence of the bill’s authors to push for the enactment of the Reproductive Health Bill has triggered a word war between them and Catholic bishops.

Speaker Prospero Nograles plans to call his colleagues to a caucus to get a consensus on whether to freeze or approve the measure.

One congressman, Mark Mendoza of Batangas, another of the bill’s co-authors, has withdrawn his endorsement of the measure.

Three other House members – Rene Velarde, William Tieng and Ma. Carissa Coscolluela – have announced they would oppose the population management bill after Velarde’s father, Bro. Mike Velarde of El Shaddai, expressed opposition to artificial family planning methods.

The three are representatives of the party-list group Buhay, which is closely associated with El Shaddai.