- Office of Rep. Edcel C. Lagman
- Independent – Albay
- 23 December 2012
- 0916-6406737 / 0918-9120137
The best essential gift the government has given to Filipinos this Christmas and the many more Christmases to come is the enactment of the Reproductive Health law.
The RH statute will enable millions of couples and women to be true to their desire of having smaller families as they are empowered to freely and responsibly determine the number and spacing of their children.
Also gifted are mothers and infants since maternal and infant mortality rates will be considerably reduced because high-risk, unwanted and unintended pregnancies, which are most prone to maternal death, abortion and unhealthy offspring, are prevented.
There are currently 14-15 mothers who die daily due to complications arising from pregnancy and childbirth.
The harrowing experience of women who suffer forced abortion because they could not afford another child will be diminished by as much as 85% since they are given access to legal, medically-safe and effective voluntary contraception.
The poor and marginalized sectors will be helped to liberate themselves from the clutches of poverty as they are accorded free and viable family planning methods and contraception by choice to mitigate population growth.
Mass poverty is inextricably linked to high fertility rates, which result to high population growth rates and the stunting of human development.
While the Philippines is the 12th most populous country in the world, its human development index ranking according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a lowly 112th among 187 countries.
The enactment this Yuletide season of the RH bill, which will save countless lives of women and children and assure their better future, is truly symbolic because millennia ago Jesus Christ was born in a manger to save the world.