PRESS RELEASE Rep. Edcel C. Lagman 0916-6406737/0918-9120137 16 February 2011 Minority Leader Edcel C. Lagman, the principal author of the RH bill, announced that the members of the Committee on Appropriations all but guaranteed today “the inexorable progression to enactment of the reproductive health bill.” The Appropriations Committee overwhelmingly approved the appropriation provision of the consolidated RH bill which reads: “The amounts appropriated in the current annual General Appropriations Act for reproductive health and natural and artificial family planning under the DOH and POPCOM shall be allocated and utilized for the initial implementation of this Act. Such additional sums necessary to implement this Act; provide for the upgrading of facilities necessary to meet Basic Emergency Obstetric Care and Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric Care standards; train and deploy skilled health providers; procure family planning supplies and commodities as provided in Sec. 10; and implement other reproductive health services, shall be included in the subsequent years' General Appropriations Acts.” The Committee voted 20 to 3 in favor of the measure. The current substitute bill is a consolidation of House Bills 96, 101, 513, 1160 and 3387 as approved previously by the Committee on Population and Family Relations. After getting the approval of the Committees on Population and Family Relations and Appropriations, the substitute bill together with the Committee Report of the Committee on Population and Family Relations will be submitted to the Committee on Rules so that the RH bill could be calendared for plenary debates, Lagman said. He also underscored that, “we do not only have the superiority of numbers; we also have the superiority of arguments.” Lagman added that “central to the bill is freedom of informed choice and access to information and services promoting both natural and modern family planning methods.” The proponents of the RH bill in the House are confident that the controversial measure will finally become a law before the year ends. Lagman stated that the enactment of an RH law will confirm the results of almost two decades of surveys documenting the peoples’ overwhelmingly support for the passage of an RH law.