Over P2 billion RH funds still available – Palace

MANILA, Philippines - More than P2 billion in funding is still available for the implementation of the Reproductive Health (RH) Law this year, a Palace official said yesterday.

Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. of the Presidential Communications Operations Office said the government has P2.275 billion for contraceptives and other family planning programs.

President Aquino had proposed an appropriation of P3.275 billion for the implementation of the RH Law this year.

The Senate, upon the initiative of Sen. Vicente Sotto III, had approved a reduction of P1.315 billion, bringing down the RH budget to P1.959 billion.

However, during the bicameral conference on the 2016 General Appropriations Act, the House succeeded in trimming the reduction to P1 billion, leaving P2.275 billion for the RH Law.

Coloma said Sotto manifested during the Senate deliberations that he would move to delete the budget for the Implanon implant amid the Supreme Court’s temporary restraining order against the distribution and selling of the contraceptive.

“So there are still funds that can be utilized by the DOH (Department of Health) for family planning aside from the amount from last year that has yet to be used,” Coloma said.

Senators bickering

Senators are now bickering over their approval of the P1 billion reduction in funds for family planning in this year’s General Appropriations Act.

Sen. Pia Cayetano, principal author in the Senate of the RH bill, is blaming finance committee chairman Loren Legarda for the reduction.

Cayetano claimed the budget cut for contraceptives was not revealed to her and the other legislators at any point during the congressional deliberations on this year’s General Appropriations Act.

Cayetano decried the lack of transparency by the Senate committee on finance when it came to reporting details such as the cut in the budget for the DOH’s Family Health and Responsible Parenting program.

According to Cayetano, the details of the budget cut were revealed only after the DOH exposed it.

“We are fooling ourselves here when the finance committee headed by Senator Legarda submitted a bicam report to senators that do not show the significant changes made. That is unethical and unacceptable,” she said.

Legarda reiterated that details of any increase or decrease in any appropriation was made available to all senators.

Former Albay congressman Edcel Lagman, principal author of the RH bill in the House, had accused Sotto of sabotaging the law by reducing funding for it.

But Sotto said his Senate colleagues are equally responsible for the funding cut because they approved it.

The reduction in funding for the RH Law is a serious step backward for Filipino women and low-income families, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.

In a statement, the group said the reduction would cut vital support for lower-income Filipinos who rely on state-provided contraceptive services for protection from sexually transmitted infections and for safe birth spacing and family planning.

“Research published in 2013 indicates that up to 50 percent of pregnancies in the Philippines are unintended, largely due to lack of availability of modern contraceptive services,” it said.

The human rights watchdog said the funding cut “threatens to roll back hard-fought gains in maternal health and reductions in infant mortality over the past decade made possible by government-subsidized or free contraceptive services.”

It noted that the United Nations Population Fund has criticized the decision of Congress to cut funding for the RH Law as a threat to “the basic human right to health as well as the right to reproductive choices.”

“It also risks exacerbating the country’s HIV crisis,” it said.

The group pointed out that the Philippines is one of only a handful of countries at risk of a full-blown AIDS epidemic.

It said the funding cut was a victory for those who opposed the RH Law.

The group lamented that while President Aquino had pushed hard for the passage of the reproductive health and responsible parenthood bill, he failed to stop the move to reduce funding for family planning.

Women workers urged for the restoration of the P1-billion budget for contraceptives.

Members of Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) said the reduction of funding for family planning was a betrayal of the RH Law and the women’s cause.

“The hard-won victory of the RH Law is being killed by legislative maneuvering of anti-women lawmakers,” PM secretary general Judy Ann Miranda said.

She said senators who agreed to cut the budget for contraceptives are anti-women. – With Jess Diaz, Marvin Sy, Mayen Jaymalin