- Office of Minority Leader Edcel C. Lagman
- 0916-6406737 / 0918-9120137
- Official Website: http://www.edcellagman.com.ph
- 07 November 2010
BISHOPS SEE PHANTOM JAILERS
After withdrawing their threat to excommunicate RH advocates, including President Benigno Aquino III, some bishops are reportedly threatening to risk being jailed in a renewed offensive against the RH bill.
Bishops and lay leaders see phantom jailers when there are none.
No one will be jailed for opposing the RH bill in good faith and promoting Catholic dogma as an antidote to contraceptives and modern family planning. Instructive debates and constructive criticisms are material to legislation.
The central agenda of the RH bill is freedom of informed choice and there will neither be reward nor compulsion for being an acceptor of family planning.
Option is the rule on whether or not couples and women would adopt a particular family planning method of their choice.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has unfortunately reiterated its objection to a group or collective dialogue with legislators supporting the RH bill, and has renewed its bias for parochial one-on-one talks between bishop and legislator apparently to maintain ascendancy or influence over individual members of Congress on a selective basis.
The claim that the RH advocacy is being funded by an international lobby is completely baseless and malicious.
House Bill No. 96 and its precursors since the 11th Congress, and all the current RH bills in the 15th Congress, were visualized, crafted and prepared solely by legislators and local private sector affiliates with neither intervention nor funding from international organizations.
The RH bill is a purely Philippine initiative in recognition of the critical need to promote reproductive health anchored on protection of human rights, enhancement of maternal and infant health, and attaining sustainable human development.