Harmful development goals
Our country is supposed to be a sovereign and independent State under which our government exercises full and complete sovereignty over all the islands and waters embraced therein. Hence no other government or international agency can conduct its activities within our territory without government sanction. This is a universal principle that comes to mind now because of certain activities being aggressively carried out by some country team agencies of the United Nations (UN) within our territory, first on the national level and lately on the local level.
It is really so disconcerting to see and hear how the UN and some of its agencies can freely and imperiously “push” the Philippines (to use the word of our colleague Marichu A. Villanueva) to reach some “goals” which they have tantalizingly denominated as “Millenium Development Goals” (MDG). They even venture to set annual targets that our country must meet to attain that beguiling MDGs by 2015 to the extent of assertively rating our performance and telling us the areas where we are “on or off target”.
At first glance the goals listed seem to be really attractive and uncontroversial. Of course every nation and people on earth would like to “eradicate poverty and hunger, develop global partnership for development, ensure environmental sustainability, combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality and improve maternal health”.
But on closer look, these MDGs are only the rewritten, expanded, and deceitfully attractive version of a program designed way back in 1974 contained in a classified document known as the National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM) 200. This study considers population growth in third world countries like the
Aside from wielding their financial power channeled through soft loans, grants, packages in the form of official development assistance (ODA) coming from agencies like UNFPA, UNDP and the International Planned Parenthood (IPP) the program adopted a more enticing new look through the MDGs that include poverty, hunger, environmental protection and maternal and reproductive health services.
Hence in the last UNESCO media breakfast forum as reported by Marichu, the representatives of these agencies confirmed this observation when they reported that the Philippines is “off target” in the MDGs for universal access to education, maternal mortality and access to reproductive health services because Filipinos, like any other couples in other countries have been denied the right to information and access to the right contraceptive method to use and because the Philippines have not squarely addressed the issue of controlling rapid population growth.
Since they are stymied in their efforts to have their population control program on the national level, they have turned their sights to the more vulnerable local government units where, as reported by the UNFPA representative, said agency has already provided this year $1.7 million worth of contraceptives that include “condoms, pills and injectibles that prevent pregnancy” with 540 LGUs already availing of their assistance.
This is very alarming. These international agencies continue to pressure our government to adopt their population control methods and they are using media to propagate myths, to misinform, to deceive and mislead. They continue harping on our rapid population growth rate when statistics show a continuing decrease in growth rate that may eventually place us in the same situation as those countries that regretted having adopted population control and are now encouraging more births. They continue to peddle the myth that our country is overpopulated with poor people so we have to limit the number of poor being born.
These agencies want the government to inform couples especially women about the reproductive health services like the use of artificial contraceptives without telling us that the World Health Organization (WHO) itself in a study, has already confirmed that oral contraceptives increase the risks of breast, cervix and liver cancer. They are not telling us of the medical findings: that contraceptive pills cause or induce abortion; that those who have used contraceptives have suffered various ailments exposing them and their children to serious bodily and emotional risk; that contraceptive pill has adverse effects on every organ system of the human body as it interferes with the normal functioning of the woman’s reproductive system; that documented cases show infants of mothers with histories of contraceptive use have been afflicted with congenital heart disease; that use of pills cause the lowering of bodily resistance to infection and hepatic adenoma that could cause death through abdominal bleeding, nervousness and excessive irritability; that IUDs cause leukemia, pelvic infection, uterine perforation ectoptic pregnancy and therapeutic abortion; that Depoprovera injectible is already banned in the US because it has caused bone cancer and congenital malformation of babies if they fail; that tubal ligation causes severe bleeding, pelvic infection and ectoptic pregnancy; that vasectomy may result in hemorrhage, greater risks of thyroid disorders, diabetes, heart and circulatory diseases; that condoms are not “foolproof” in preventing HIV/AIDS and may also lead to unwanted pregnancies and abortion.
These agencies are not promoting reproductive health but reproductive harm to advance their population control program to the intent of “inducing” LGUs to pass ordinances about reproductive health and population management policy which is not within the LGUs’ power under the Local Government Code and which is also impinging on the constitutional right and duty of parents to educate their children according to their faith and morals.
It is about time for these agencies to back off and leave us alone.
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