Yearender: CBCP ends 2012 on a bad note with passage of RH bill

MANILA, Philippines - The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) ended the past year on a bad note. The controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill, which was fiercely opposed by the CBCP, was ratified by the Senate and the House of Representatives last Dec. 19 and signed into law by President Aquino two days later.

CBCP media office director Monsignor Pedro Quitorio III said the Catholic Church and its allies will not back down and will continue to monitor the progress of the measure’s implementation.

“The church has 2,000 years background and we have faced harder issues than this. Even with the Philippine church that started almost 500 years ago, we have had harder times than this and we have never backed down an inch. We would always pursue the teachings of the church, especially on life,” Quitorio said.

A group of Catholic lawyers is reportedly planning to file a legal case before the Supreme Court (SC).

The CBCP has been vocal in opposing the RH bill because it believes that it is a violation of the Constitution, would promote premarital sex and the use of contraceptives and abortifacient drugs, and threaten the sanctity of marriage and family life. The Catholic bishops also strongly dislike the idea that millions in taxpayers’ money would be used to purchase contraceptives since these items are readily available in the market.

The bishops argued that the government’s fund should instead be spent on education and health care for the people.

Since 2011, the CBCP has intensified its education campaign to explain to the youth the effects of the RH bill on the unborn child and the family.

Quitorio said that their effort in going to schools to discuss the RH bill bore fruit because they were able to inform and raise awareness of students regarding the issue. He said this is manifested in social networking sites. 

The website “CBCP for Life,” launched in 2010, has the second most number of hits among all websites of the CBCP. The www.cbcpnews.com was on top with more than four million hits.

Quitorio said they will continue to raise their arguments through an education campaign in 2013. 

Outdated arguments Quitorio said the arguments raised by some of the supporters of the RH bill were passé and they also need to be educated.

“It gives us the impression, based on the answers they have given, that what they are saying is really far from what is being taught, such as their arguments on population and poverty. These are already obsolete yet these are still the issues they mentioned in Congress,” he said.

The bishops do not believe that the Philippines is overpopulated and that this is one cause of poverty.  Instead, they said poverty is rooted in bad governance and inappropriate and poorly implemented economic policies that lead to poor tax collection and corruption.

During the votation on the second reading of the bill at the House of Representatives, the pro-RH legislators won by nine votes, with 113 in favor and only 104 against its passage. Sixty-four were absent. Quitorio said that the pro-RH group was able to muster 113 votes because of the reported pressure exerted by some international organizations, as well as President Aquino and the pork barrel. 

“Whatever we would have dished out at that time, even if you came from the Catholic Church you would have backed down, that is why some of them opted not to attend the voting,” he said.

When asked how they would be able to educate the congressmen, he said they would have to undergo a long and tedious process. 

“We call this the formation process and it does not happen in just one day. (When) you are informed, you have already become formed. It’s a long process and that is why we have made the Year of the Faith into nine years, from year 2013 until year 2021, so they would have a deeper formation.”

They have incorporated the church teachings on the RH bill in the primer for the Year of the Faith.

It answers three questions, namely: In what way is the secular spirit at work in the proposed RH bill?; What is the official Catholic position on the RH bill?; and What is to be said about members of Catholic educational institutions who dissent against teachings of the church? 

APECO issue

Another social issue tackled by the CBCP in 2012 was the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Freeport Area (APECO).

The church leaders are in solidarity with the fisherfolk, farmers and indigenous groups who have been adversely affected by the APECO project in Casiguran, Aurora province. They have reportedly been displaced and were not consulted when the APECO airport was planned to be built in the area.

There have also been complaints that farmers were being harassed by those interested in buying their land.

The environment was also not spared as the local church in the area reported incidents of environmental degradation such as illegal logging, mangrove clearing and river quarrying as a result of the project that would occupy 12,923 hectares.

Just recently, some 120 people marched for 18 days from Casiguran to Manila in order to bring their grievances before President Aquino.

The Chief Executive met with them but they were disappointed to hear him say that he would order a review of the APECO but would not scrap the P350-million annual budget for the project. 

Good news

Despite these travails, the Philippine Church also received its share of good news.

Sacristan and missionary catechist Pedro Calungsod was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI, and Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle was elevated to the College of Cardinals.

Calungsod became the second Filipino saint on Oct. 21. He was a Filipino martyr from the Visayas who was killed at the age of 17 while doing missionary work in the Marianas Island in Guam in 1672.

Lorenzo Ruiz is the first Filipino saint. 

The 55-year-old Tagle, on the other hand, became a cardinal 11 months after he was appointed Archbishop of Manila. He is the seventh Filipino to become a cardinal.

And since the Philippines’ two other living cardinals – former Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales and former Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal – are more than 80 years old and retired, only Tagle will be the country’s representative if a conclave is convened.