A national pro-life summit vs RH bill

We have just finished the two-day National Pro-Life Leader’s Summit at the Quest Hotel, Cebu City last Monday and Tuesday and it gave us an update on still coming threat of the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill. Being a national summit, we met with delegates from Aklan, Manila, Davao Negros, Mindanao and Cebu. So we really had a bird’s eye view of what’s happening around the country direct from the pro-lifers’ leaders themselves.

With the Senate Impeachment still getting the focus away from the RH debates, it was the perfect time to prepare us for the up and coming RH debate in Congress. Of course we discussed the proposal of former House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman who urged the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) for a dialogue with his group. I merely pointed out that this was Rep. Lagman’s effort to get his name back in the news as he has since been sidelined when he lost the top slot for the House Minority.

While the Catholic Church through Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma is not backing out on any debates, Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles pointed out that the lay people should be the ones to participate in the debates. In my book, we’ve already seen those very public debates on ABS-CBN and GMA-7 so as far as we are concerned, it is no longer necessary. But then the lawmakers want those debates so they could keep their names in the limelight.

Another reason why I believe that a debate is futile is simply… there can be no compromise on the RH bill. The pro-lifers don’t want it (this means the Catholic Church and even many Protestant Churches are pro-life) and the Congressmen led by Lagman and of course no less than Pres. Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino, wants it passed and we can only reckon it is because they already got the bulk of the lobby money given by foreign groups or NGOs who want this bill passed in our country. By the way, they are not even registered under the Foreign Agents Act.

Indeed, the pro-life groups face a formidable battle in the light of huge funds for the pro-RH supporters given by NGO’s and foreign Planned Parenthood groups, including the UN. What makes matters difficult is what I learned during the National Summit that quite a few Bishops or priests are still ignorant even of the certain teachings of the Catholic Church.

Many of them still promote the old Rhythm Method dubbed the Standard Days Method (SDM), which the Catholic Church abandoned three decades ago because it doesn’t work on women with irregular menstrual cycles.

The Church these days adopts the Billings Ovulation Method, Basal Body Temperature Method, Sympto-Thermal Method and Amenorrhea Method because they respect the sacredness of life. These are alternatives to the RH.

A big surprise came from a report from former Councilor Tess Mananon of Davao City who told us that they have become the pilot RH city, where they did not wait for the RH bill to pass in Congress, so Davao City Council passed their own RH ordinance despite the protestations from the Archdiocese and the clergy. This is what Dr. Rene Josef Bullecer of Human Life International (HLI) calls a “back door” approach by pro-RH groups to ram home an RH bill even down to the city council or the barangay level.

Clearly the battle for or against the RH bill pits the Catholic Church and would you believe the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which is openly fought by their allied front organizations like Gabriela and Akbayan. This fight is done by many Lay Catholic members belonging to many charismatic organizations many of which are poorly-funded. Just imagine that they are up against the well-funded pro-RH, where they can even use government money to entice people to have a ligation or a vasectomy!

What a few people realize is that, in the United States, the up and coming Presidential elections pit pro-lifers belonging to the Republicans against the liberals of the Democratic Party. Thus you can say that the pro-life groups here should also be getting prepared for the up and coming 2013 elections. A more radical approach is for pro-lifers is to run a campaign against those elective officials, Congressmen, Senators, Governors or Mayors who are openly supporting the RH bill. If they are pro-RH, they should be exposed now while they are down on their knees asking for your votes.

What was very encouraging was the report of Leslie Garcia. a Council member of the Negros Citizen’s Alliance for the Protection of Human Life, who told us that some 300 Christian Pastors have joined hands in the Pro-Life Movement helping Bishop Vicente Navarra of Bacolod in the fight against the RH Bill and their numbers are growing like in Cebu.

Mrs. Fenny Tatad of NCR reported that the biggest threat to the Pro-Life movement is Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III who is clearly getting international assistance for the passage of the RH Bill. Let me point out that the RH Bill is anti-life and anti-family is helped by foreign funding. Yet the pro-life groups have survived because they are doing God’s will!

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