The RH bill is at the threshold of approval after almost 15 years of unrelenting crusade by authors and advocates inside and outside of the Congress.

          The termination of the debates is an emphatic validation by the people’s elected representatives of the periodic surveys that Filipinos want the enactment of the RH bill and for the government to use public funds for family planning, including contraceptives that are not abortive.

          It is a collective realization by congresspersons that as representatives of the people they are obliged to legislate with courage and conviction their constituents’ clamor for an RH law, unperturbed by threats of hellfire or reprisals at the polls.

           It is also a collective awareness of the surveys’ consistent results that the voters will elect candidates with platforms that include family planning and government funding for medically safe, legal and effective contraceptives.

          The vote taken on Monday, 06 August, ending the debates was providential because continuous rains and heavy flooding have caused the suspension of the session on Tuesday, 07 August, the original date scheduled for the voting to terminate interpellations on the bill.

            The expected passage of the RH bill is:

             (1) An affirmation that public funds have no religion and can be used for the general welfare independent of the dogma of any church;

           (2) A bold statement that responsible parenthood and reproductive health are not about religion or sex but about human rights, maternal and infant health and sustainable human development; and

            (3) An empirical recognition that no development agenda will succeed without the government simultaneously and positively addressing the population problem.