Lagman: One giant step for women

March 8 and March 9, Women’s Day and International Women’s Day, respectively, came and went with women and women’s advocates citing gains they’ve made during the last 50 years. But the resounding challenge the celebrations emphasized was one and the same: the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill 4244 in the 14th Congress.

The happiest cause for celebration was the elevation of RH Bill 4244 to the plenary debates level, something that had not happened with RH bills filed in past congresses. 

“The start of the sponsorship and eventual plenary debates on the RH bill in the House of Representatives is one small step for RH advocates but one giant step for Filipino women,” said a jubilant Rep. Edcel C. Lagman, House Minority Leader and Albay representative, and principal author of House Bill 4244 or the “Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population and Development Act of 2011” which was sponsored on March 8. 

In his sponsorship speech, Lagman enumerated the following reasons why the country needs an RH law.

• The law will protect and promote the basic right of parents to freely and responsibly plan the number and spacing of their children by making available all forms of legal, medically-safe and truly effective family planning methods.

• Help lower the incidence of abortion by preventing unplanned, mistimed and unwanted pregnancies — the very pregnancies which are terminated through abortion.

• Enhance the ability of the Philippines to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which want to reduce infant deaths, promote safe motherhood, and prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS.

• Buttress the country’s anti-poverty agenda, because without a clear policy on reproductive health, an inordinately huge population growth rate aggravates existing poverty.

The bill, said Lagman, is constitutional. The overriding purpose of this provision, said Lagman, is to preempt the Congress and the Supreme Court from legalizing abortion. House Bill No. 4244 is indubitably against abortion. It unequivocally provides that “nothing in this Act changes the law against abortion”.

Lagman asked his colleagues to support the passage of the RH bill “so that every Filipino child will be born wanted and the miracle of life will not mean death for 11 Filipino mothers daily.”

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In the Senate, a not so victorious development took place. Sen. Pia Cayetano, chair of the Senate Committees on Health and Demography and on Youth, Women and Family Relations, was scheduled to deliver a 10-page privilege speech on the status of the commitments of the Philippines under the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The speech was to focus on MDGs 4 (reducing Child Mortality) and 5 (Improve Maternal Health), where the country has been performing poorly. She was, however, asked by the Majority Floor Leader to give way to interpellations on the proposed GOCC Governance Act of 2011. So Pia delivered a brief, impromptu speech, and showed a two-minute film documentary on the plight of women and children.

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Yesterday, International Women’s Day, a group of women legislators of different political affiliations shared with media their insights on the more than 10 years battle for the passage of the highly debated reproductive health bill, and their motives for defending the lives, health, and rights of women. The speakers were Rep. Janet L. Garin of the 1st District of Iloilo and 2011 Women Deliver International awardee; Akbayan Party List Rep. Kaka Bag-Ao, a lawyer and a development activist, and Rep. Em Aglipay of the Democratic Independent Workers Association (DIWA).

On March 8, more than 1,000 women members of the Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines (DSWP), led by national chairperson Elizabeth Angsioco, joined the “Women’s Long March towards the Passage of the RH Bill” to express their frustrations over the delays in the passage of House Bill 4244 or the “Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2011.”

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My column last week on errant Rotarians drew a number of comments from readers. Wilson, who registers himself as wyl, wrote: “Your article regarding the trouble of Rotary club is no surprise to me considering they have a Joc-joc leading their organization and having him elected to lead their international organization! Rotarians should have been ashamed then, but they didn’t even bother to dissociate themselves from Joc-joc. I expect Rotary to die a natural death from the stink it has brought upon itself, and I wouldn’t mourn its passing !” — Wilson

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Another reader wrote affirming the truth about illicit relationships going on in Rotary International circles. The reader cites the case of a governor-elect — “the highest prestigious position Rotarians are dying for.” In one of the President Elect Training Seminar (PETS), wrote this reader, this governor-elect brought his lady love whom he appointed as administrator, and not his wife. The woman in question had organized his victory party and birthday party celebration in the presence of 80 club officers and district officers — and again the governor-elect did not bring his official wife and family. The lady love “is a fellow Rotarian who had been kicked out of three different clubs but was saved by the governor-elect by putting her in another club so she can join him again to work in his district. This governor-elect, by the way, is a retired military officer. So don’t trust retired Rotarians in uniform who bring home ‘pabaons’ in various forms. His district must investigate him, and not get him installed into office.”

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Responding to my column last week, Chit Lijauco, a past District Governor and Rotary Regional Public Image Coordinator, wrote:          

“I read with interest the last portion of your column today (8 March 2011). While I do not say that what your source said about the unethical behavior of some Rotarians is untrue, I must, however, state that hundreds of other Rotarians live by the highest ethical standards as has been the organization’s objective since it was founded in 1905.

“You wrote, ‘One rotten fruit can spoil a basket of fruits.’ I believe, however, that Rotary’s basket is sturdy and overflowing with the fruits of all its humanitarian services happening every day all over the world. Whatever cracks these unworthy Rotarians cause on Rotary’s image will be repaired by the constant and continuous service that the rest of our 1.2 million members worldwide do as a way of life.

 “Of course this does not excuse Rotary from closing one eye to these members who do not set a good example. Rest assured that Rotary leaders are not remiss in harping on the exercise of the highest ethics in business and professional lives in any occasion they can — and of course, leading by example. But in such a huge organization like Rotary, there will be those who will not embody its ideals. Assuredly, they do not represent the norm.” (Chit Lijauco, past District Governor and Rotary Regional Public Image Coordinator)

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My e-mail: [email protected]