by MENCHIE MANEZE
Freelance writer
Right to life with dignity
Mother Teresa does have a funny streak. She said people very often made joke with her (or about her, rather) because she was teaching natural family planning but she herself does not practice it – she is having more and more children every day!
“Indeed, that is the way it is, our (mission) homes are always full of children.” From her book No Greater Love, (first printed in 1997) she wrote, “We asked God to send us someone to help women cope with their difficulties in a clean conscience, a healthy body, and in a happy family. This came to us as a sister.. who attended a course in Family Planning… When people see these good effects in their family, they come to say thanks. Some of them have stayed together, in good health, and have a child when they desire it. I think if we could bring this method to every country, if our poor people would learn it, there would be more peace, more love in the family between parents and children.”
We all know Mother Teresa, Roman Catholic nun and founder of the Missionaries of Charity of Calcutta, 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner, beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. If she was still with us, I believe she wouldn’t spare a joke or two about those meddling with the long overdue Reproductive Health Bill (RH Bill) in the Philippines, those selfish do-gooders prolonging the suffering of our women and children.
Long overdue it is. The number of children treading urban Philippine streets night and day to sell, beg, roam or scavenge is no mere statistics. An American anthropologist and health specialist recently wrote a long letter (signed as Dave, published at
He said that:
In the mid 1960s, South Korea and the Philippines had about the same population and per capita income: around 30 million and $1,200 per year GDP.
In mid 2006, South Korea had a population of 48.5 million and a per capita GDP of $21,800 while the Philippines had a population of 86 million and a per capita GDP of $5,000. South Korea has become a Developed Country.
“I am truly saddened that the Philippines has opted to be poor due not to foreign oppression but to lack of demographic understanding….”
It’s been a numbers game for a long number of years. Apparently, the RH Bill does not have enough votes to pass in Congress, after a number of hearings and adjournments.
So ok, let some numbers talk. Or let’s talk some numbers in support of the RH Bill:
(From the Philippine National Statistics Office (NSO) Family Planning Survey 2006)
Maternal mortality rate: 162 deaths per 100,000 live births
(8.4 in Australia. Source: msf.org,au)
Infant mortality rate 32 deaths per 1,000 live births
(4.82 in Australia. Source: indexmundi.com)
38% of deaths of children under the age of 5 are from curable diseases
26% of women 15-27 years old have already begun child-rearing
(in Australia, the average age of mothers giving birth was 29.8 years in 2006)
400,000 illegal abortions per year
100,000 women hospitalised each year due to post-abortion complication
The Pulse Asia survey reports
92% believe in contraceptives and family planning
89% believe government should provide budgetary support for family planning
The RH Bill pleads its case in great detail with important but unsurprising ratios and forecasts (e.g. high point ratios in child per classroom, textbook per student, student to teacher, health care budget per capita, population count of 40% below poverty line with current 84 million to double in 30 years time, and so on) in concert with the global drive for sustainable human development.
The UN stated in 2002 that “family planning and reproductive health are essential to reducing poverty.” The Unicef also asserts that
“family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology now available to the human race
The Bill’s advocates are restless but otherwise positive about the impending natural birth of a new era in Philippine sustainable human development. “Much more than population and birth control, the RH Bill seeks the emancipation of disadvantaged women and children from morbid poverty, caused by and as a result of lack of and misinformation about the choices out there.
The RH Bill is national in scope, comprehensive, rights-based and provides adequate funding to the population program. It is a departure from the present setup in which the provision for reproductive health services is devolved to local government units, and consequently, subjected to the varying strategies of local government executives and suffers from a dearth of funding.”
celdrantours.blogspot.com/search/label/reproductive%20health%20bill”. Dave worked as a consultant in Asian countries 40 years ago, when I was a child myself. He compared the government’s population management efforts in Taiwan and South Korea to that of the Philippines. womensphere.wordpress.com opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/talkofthetown/view/20080803-152296/Reproductive-health-bill-Facts-fallacies. Reproductive Health Bill: Facts, Fallacies by Rep. Edcel Lagman Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted Aug 3, 2008 celdrantours.blogspot.com/search/label/reproductive%20health%20bill forming a facebook.com/group.php?gid=27617482169 facebook group and attending hearings for the RH Bill. Hands on, he has from his own pocket helped pay for ligation for a woman not aware of family planning until after the birth of her 6th child. Every time he went through squatter communities, he has given away condoms and birth control pills he has bought himself.
In summary, here’s what the proposed RH Bill seeks to provide:
(1) Information and access to natural and modern family planning
(2) Maternal, infant and child health and nutrition
(3) Promotion of breast feeding
Prevention of abortion and management of post-abortion complications
(5) Adolescent and youth health
(6) Prevention and management of reproductive tract infections, HIV/AIDS & STDs
(7) Elimination of violence against women
(8) Counselling on sexuality and sexual and reproductive health
(9) Treatment of breast and reproductive tract cancers
(10) Male involvement and participation in RH
(11) Prevention and treatment of infertility and
(12) RH education for the youth.
(source: Carlos Celdran, a celebrated Old Manila tour guide, may seem like an unlikely volunteer helping squatter women plan their pregnancies and find affordable medical services on birth control. He is one highly visible, boisterous and animated advocate for women’s reproductive rights. He does far more than
In an interview with Xu Lingui and Ana Santos, Carlos said “They want it, they need it and they use it. Birth control is something we want but not given to us. It is a right deprived rather than personal faith. A pack of condoms that cost five pesos is still too expensive for the poor. It shouldn’t be that only rich people can plan the family.” . Mother Teresa has put it most plainly, “We desire not class struggle but class encounter – the rich save the poor, and the poor save the rich… For hunger is more than hunger for bread, but human dignity.”
For those in favour of the RHBill, Elizabeth Angsioco, Secretary-General of the Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) suggests:
1) Write to your Philippine Congress representative about the urgency of passing and your support for the RH Bill.
2) Write a Letter to the Editor about your stand and support of the RH Bill and send it to your favourite broadsheet daily.
3) Join us as we monitor the proceedings at the House of Representatives.
4) Invite more people to sign our online petition.
In the interest of fairness, there is also an online petition against the bill
Let’s hear what Dave the consultant concluded: “The Philippines has become, in my estimation, a Never to be Developed Country, not a Developing Country”. Never?! To shock each Filipino into action, that statement may just work, especially for the current apathetic female president and the childless mindless male-dominated clergy.
I left the Philippines for Australia in 1989. With 3 young children of my own, I could not bear the sight of hungry street children in Manila. My doctor in Sydney approved my request for sterilisation without fuss, even though I was under 30 years old. I decided then that I had enough blessings, grateful to be made an instrument in bringing forth 3 beautiful beings that I am able to love and care for.
Twenty years on, I cannot bear to turn a blind eye to Manila’s street children. They are the children of street children I ran away from 20 years ago – God knows multiplied a number of times over. Children are unable to choose parents who can love and support them. But all parents should be able to choose to have the children they can nourish and sustain in a life with dignity.
The RH Bill is in full term, ready for delivery. Those stopping its natural birth will be judged guilty of aborting the life that the Filipino holds as a nation. Let us help push, and push hard for its passage. I can almost hear the happy cry of a new born RH Bill and a soon to be developed Philippines.
petitiononline.com/xxhb5043/petition.html/t_blank
As of early August 2009, there are, unsurprisingly again, more than 60% signatures in favour of the bill versus 40% against. petitiononline.com/rhan2008/petition.html
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