• Office of Minority Leader Edcel C. Lagman
• 0916-6406737 / 0918-9120137
• Official Website: http://www.edcellagman.com.ph
• 17 March 2011

          There is need for devil’s advocates so that the reproductive health bill can be canonized into final enactment.

           If 55 anti-RH legislators have been listed to interpellate the sponsors of the reproductive health bill, then why is it that no one is prepared to interpellate despite the readiness of the RH authors to answer questions in the plenary since last Monday, 14 March 2011?

          There is need for an immediate high level confrontation through plenary debates even as the RH advocates are certain that their measure will survive the furnace of interrogation.

           Deputy Speaker Raul Daza and Rep. Amado Bagatsing, who are known opponents of the bill, told Minority Leader and Albay Representative Edcel C. Lagman, the principal author of House Bill No. 4244, the consolidated substitute RH bill, that they would be ready to interpellate only in May when sessions resume after a long break.

           The procrastination of the oppositors of the RH bill is a signal victory for the reproductive health measure because it validates the reality that the RH advocates have the superiority in arguments as well as in numbers while the oppositors are merely employing dilatory tactics.

           Delaying the passage of the RH bill is a defeatist strategy.