The birth of the 100millionth Filipino baby again puts in focus the critical immediacy of fully implementing the reproductive health law as an increasing population imperils finite resources and strains limited budgets.
This was stressed by former Rep. Edcel C. Lagman, the principal author of the controversial measure which took over 13 years to enact and which was recently declared constitutional by the Supreme Court.
It is symbolic that baby girl Chonalyn was born at the Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital which has long been reputed to be a “baby factory” where inordinately numerous deliveries are recorded daily, Lagman added.
The former Albay solon said that the following important provisions of the RH Law, among others, must be implemented with reasonable alacrity:
1. Government extension and grant of reproductive health care, services and commodities to the marginalized sectors who are willing acceptors of RH and family planning programs.
2. The procurement by the Department of Health (DOH) of medically-safe, legal, effective and non-abortifacient contraceptives and devices for distribution to the poor and to the local government units (LGUs).
3. The retraining of barangay health workers so that they could competently assist in the implementation of the RH Law.
4. The immediate formulation of an RH curriculum by the Department of Education (DepEd) for enrolled adolescent pupils and students which may be adopted by private schools so that RH good practices and beneficent results can be instilled early among the young.
5. Extensive training of teachers who will handle reproductive health classes for adolescents in the coming school years.
6. Adequate outlays for RH for inclusion in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) to be submitted to the Congress by the President after the SONA.
7. Meaningful and responsive appropriations by the Congress starting 2015 to fully implement the RH Law.
With profound appreciation of the Supreme Court’s unanimous verdict upholding the constitutionality of the Reproductive Health Law on the whole and with due respect to Associate Justice Jose C. Mendoza who penned the ponencia, there is critical need, however, to clarify a number of disturbing statements, observations and obiter expressed in the ponencia.
The repeated reference by Justice Mendoza to the perfunctory statement that the RH Law is basically a population control measure was not determinative of the constitutional issues. Moreover, the recurrent observation has no anchorage in the language and spirit of the RH Law because:
• No less than Sec. 3(l) of the law provides that “[t]here shall be no demographic or population targets and the mitigation, promotion and/or stabilization of the population growth rate is incidental to the advancement of reproductive health.”
• This unequivocal provision negates population control since: (a) no specific rate or range of population growth is prescribed; and (b) the mitigation of the population growth rate is the result of affording women, couples and parents the exercise of their human right to freely and responsibly determine the number and spacing of their children.
Incidentally, surveys show that poor women would like to limit the number of their children but they do not have access to family planning information and supplies. Under the RH Law, the government shall give marginalized voluntary acceptors the requisite information, supplies and services.
• Population control is anathema to the law’s hallmark of freedom of informed choice where both compulsion and reward are proscribed. Section 3(a) mandates that “[t]he right to make free and informed decisions, which is central to the exercise of any right, shall not be subjected to any form of coercion and must be fully guaranteed by the State like the right itself.”
Likewise, Sec. 3(h) provides that “[t]he State shall respect individuals’ preferences and choice of family planning methods that are in accordance with their religious convictions and cultural beliefs, taking into consideration the State’s obligations under various human rights instruments.”
To give full meaning to the freedom of informed choice, the authors removed voluntarily the precursor provision of Section 13 of the original House Bill No. 16 on “Ideal Family Size” which reads: “In order to attain the desired population growth rate, the State shall encourage two (2) children as the ideal family size. Children from these families shall have preference in the grant of scholarships at the tertiary level.”
As finally enacted, the RH Law does not contain a provision similar to or identical with this provision on ideal family size. The norm of a two-child policy, which was not even mandatory, was deleted together with the reward of a college scholarship for children who belong to a two-child family. The authors considered the expectance of a reward for one’s children as impairing the freedom of choice. Also scrapped was any reference to a “desired population growth rate.”
• As correctly pointed out by the ponente, “the RH Law does not prescribe the number of children a couple may have and does not impose conditions upon couples who intend to have children” (Decision, page 94). The earmarks of population control are absent.
• Instead of a population control measure, the RH Law is a health measure, particularly for the health of women, adolescents, children and infants. It is a human rights legislation which guarantees the right to reproductive self-determination. It is a poverty alleviation program and a veritable agenda for sustainable human development.
To reiterate, the oft-repeated reference to “population control” was not necessary in adjudicating that the RH Law is constitutional. “Control” denotes coercion or compulsion which goes against the RH Law’s granting premium to the primacy of individual conscience and choice in adopting any family planning option.
On the controversial issue on the beginning of life, the ponente accurately said that the “Majority of the Members of the Court are of the position that the question of when life begins is a scientific and medical issue that should not be decided, at this stage, without proper hearing and evidence” (Decision, page 39). He also correctly added: “During the deliberation, however, it was agreed upon that the individual members of the Court could express their own views on the matter” (Decision, page 39).
Subsequently, the ponente lengthily discussed his personal view that “life begins at fertilization.” We may acquiesce to his “justifications” which straddled a little over 10 percent of the ponencia (Decision, pages 39-48). We regret, however, that at the end of his disquisition, Justice Mendoza attributed his personal view to the Court’s collective opinion when he stated: “For the above reasons, the Court cannot subscribe to the theory advocated by Hon. Lagman that life begins at implantation” (Decision, page 48).
This remark contradicts the majority’s desistance to resolve the medical and scientific issue of when life begins “without a proper hearing and evidence.” How then can the Court reject the submission that life begins at the implantation of the fertilized ovum in the uterine wall when the Court a priori refused to decide when life begins?
Verily, Justice Mendoza’s view is his own, not the Supreme Court’s.
Edcel C. Lagman authored the reproductive health bill in the 15th Congress as representative of the first district of Albay.
Why be fascinated with the exceptions and fail to appreciate the general rule? The rule, as held by the Supreme Court, is that the Reproductive Health Law is constitutional, and the exceptions are some provisions which were voided to principally respect minority views.
Did the stricken provisions render the RH Law “toothless”? Not at all. The core provisions are intact, untouched by the judicial scalpel, foremost of which are the following:
1. The mandate for government to afford the marginalized sectors free access to family planning services and supplies (Sec. 3[c]).
2. The provision on the Philippine National Drug Formulary, which includes hormonal contraceptives, IUDs, injectables and other safe, legal, nonabortifacient and effective family planning devices and supplies, as determined by the Food and Drug Administration (Sec. 9).
3. The authority of the Department of Health to procure family planning supplies for distribution to local government units (LGUs) (Sec. 10).
4. The mandate for LGUs to assist in the implementation of the RH Law (Sections 5, 6, 8, 16 and 20).
5. The provision for RH education to adolescents in all schools (Sec. 14). Importantly, RH education is mandated for all schools, both public and private. The only difference is that the Department of Education shall formulate the curriculum for public schools, which may be adopted by private schools. Otherwise, private schools shall make their own curriculum, subject to the supervisory authority of the DepEd.
Section 14 does not distinguish whether an adolescent is enrolled in a public or private school. It would be a violation of the equal protection clause if adolescents in private schools are deprived of the benefits of RH education.
6. Government to pursue public awareness programs and nationwide multimedia campaign for reproductive health.
With the constitutionality of the foregoing salient provisions sustained, the voiding of a few provisions will not diminish the efficacy of the law and deter its full implementation.
The voided provisions can be categorized into the following groupings:
(a) Protection of the right of conscientious objectors: (i) hospitals owned by religious groups are not required to refer a patient needing reproductive health care to another hospital; (ii) an RH care provider who is a conscientious objector is not obliged to follow the referral requirement; (iii) a private RH care provider who is a conscientious objector is not required to render 40-hour a year pro bono service to indigent women for PhilHealth accreditation.
(b) Requirement of spousal and parental consent in the following cases: (i) spousal consent is needed for a married person to undergo ligation/vasectomy; (ii) parental consent for a minor to access modern contraceptives even if such minor had already a miscarriage;
(iii) parental consent for minors who would like to avail of nonelective surgical procedures.
(c) Any public official who refuses to implement the RH Law.
(d) Any healthcare provider “who fails and/or refuses to disseminate information regarding programs and services on reproductive health regardless of his/her religious beliefs.”
The foregoing situations cover exceptions to the rule, to wit:
(a) Conscientious objectors are more the exception than the rule. The vast majority of health providers, albeit Catholics, are RH advocates. Moreover, a conscientious objector must act in good faith. Conscientious objection is not an absolute license to violate the RH Law. Furthermore, a patient who is refused medical care will seek on his own another provider even without a referral.
(b) In most cases, spouses discuss and agree if one has to undergo ligation or vasectomy, especially when such a procedure is medically recommended or they have already children. Consequently, the need for spousal consent in case of disagreement is again the exception than the rule.
(c) Nonelective surgical procedures for minors where parental consent is required happen rarely.
(d) Public officials who refuse to support the RH program or hinder the implementation of the law constitute the exception because generally public functionaries will obey the law consistent with their oath of office.
However, a healthcare provider, whether public or private, who knowingly withholds information or intentionally provides incorrect information regarding programs and services on reproductive health is culpable, as held by the Supreme Court, because such prohibited acts “connote a sense of malice and ill motive to mislead or misrepresent the public as to the nature and effect of programs and services on reproductive health.”
Consequently, while refusal to disclose information or render service is exempt and nonactionable, knowingly giving misinformation about RH programs is penalized.
Edcel C. Lagman authored the Reproductive Health bill in the 15th Congress as representative of the first district of Albay.
Catholic priests have taken to violating the seal of the confessional just to demonize the reproductive health (RH) law, according to one of its principal authors, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, who deplored the “malevolent propaganda” against the law.
Lagman on Sunday twitted Fr. Melvin Castro, head of the Episcopal Commission on Family and Life, for saying that based on the observation of priests, many young people were aware of the sin of using artificial contraception because of the RH law, and were driven to confession because of it.
Lagman said a majority of Catholics in the country were supportive of the RH law, as repeatedly shown by surveys.
Castro said prelates had reason to thank Lagman for this surge of awareness.
Castro said some women had confessed to having an abortion, but added that he and other priests made sure not to violate the seal of the confessional, which made it mandatory for priests to maintain strict confidentiality when it came to the sins confessed to them.
Seal violated
But Castro’s statements did not sit well with Lagman, who contended that such claims betrayed the penitents who gave their confidence to men of the cloth.
“Some Catholic priests would even venture into violating the sacramental seal of confession to revive a lost campaign against the reproductive health law,” he said.
The lawmaker added that the “revelation of penitents’ confessions is a blatant violation of the centuries-old Church injunction for confessors not to betray or disclose both the subject of the confession and the identity of the penitents.”
Violating such a seal could be penalized with excommunication, Lagman said.
He noted that even the Philippine Rules of Court considered confessions absolute privilege communication.
Catholics for RH law
Based on “repeated national surveys,” many Catholics were in favor of the RH law that the Church staunchly opposes, Lagman said.
One feature of the law is contraception by choice, he noted.
Academics from Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University have said that supporting the RH measure is not inconsistent with being Catholic, since it adheres to the core principles of Catholic social teaching, Lagman pointed out.
These include the sanctity of human life, the dignity of the human person, the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable, integral human development, human rights and the primacy of conscience.
Lagman cited a study by the UP Population Institute, which showed that 90 percent of Filipino youth believed the government should provide them with relevant family planning services, including contraceptives.
International studies
He also said that the United Nations Development Program, United Nations Population Fund and the World Health Organization’s Department of Reproductive Health and Research had unanimously declared that “it is universally recognized that contraception is the most effective intervention to prevent unintended pregnancy, abortion, child and maternal mortality and morbidity.”
“Empirical studies also show that the correct and regular use of contraceptives could reduce abortion rates by as much as 85 percent,” he added.
Church officials are against the RH law for requiring the government to provide contraceptives for free to those who may want it.
The Church believes that some of the artificial means of contraception induce abortion. Some opponents also contend that the RH law would promote promiscuity.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) had been at the forefront of the bitter battle to defeat the RH bill in Congress. The bishops and anti-RH members of the House of Representatives and the Senate lost the battle.
President Aquino signed the RH measure into law last December. On March 15, the Department of Health approved the implementing rules and regulations of the RH law.
After its defeat, the CBCP is continuing the fight this election season by enticing voters not to support those who voted for the bill’s passage into law. Thus, the rise of “Team Patay (Death)” posters on church premises.
BLISSED OUT: Sen. Pia Cayetano and Lagman enjoy their moment shortly after the RH bill became law (PDI Photo/ Raffy Lerma)
His detractors in the debate over the controversial Reproductive Health bill might have mentally consigned him to hell for his fiery defense of the measure that would provide poor couples access to contraceptives, and offer sex education to adolescents in public schools.
But unknown to even his allies in supporting the bill, Albay Representative Edcel Lagman was already in hell during the plenary sessions.
And all because a freak accident had severed the ligament on his right knee in April last year.
Lagman had borrowed his daughter Larah’s car to go to a meeting, but since the car’s seat was lower than he was used to, the congressman entered it at an awkward angle. Suddenly, he felt his right knee burst “like a firework.”
Throughout the protracted amendments period, he endured the extreme pain in his leg. But that did not stop him from staunchly defending a bill that he had inherited from his daughter Kristel.
Lagman, the RH bill’s author in three congresses, had embraced the measure after his daughter, former Albay Rep. Krisel Lagman-Luistro (now Tabaco mayor), along with Aurora Rep. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo, championed it in the legislature 13 years ago.
During deliberations, the congressman’s left leg twitched from cramps as he vigorously defended the bill, but he was reluctant to complain lest the bill’s critics find an excuse to further defer the already painfully slow process.
“I can risk the cramps overwhelming me but never the critics of the RH bill succeeding in further delaying the legislative process,” he said.
Lagman even chose to forego an immediate knee replacement surgery last year as he did not want to be absent from the RH bill deliberations. Instead, the surgery had been scheduled after the elections.
He now walks with a cane, so as not to overburden his left leg while he allows his right limb some rest. This has left him with both legs in pain.
But then again, the Albay lawmaker is used to adversity.
Thanks to his long and fiercely loyal association with former President Gloria Arroyo, Lagman might never make it to the list of most admired public officials in recent times.
As party mates in the Lakas Christian Muslim Democrats party, the two quickly became allies, with Lagman stolidly parrying issues against Arroyo. Most of them didn’t hold water, he said, citing the election cheating scandal brought on by the “Hello, Garci” tapes that tended to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Arroyo presidency.
“I think the results of the elections had been validated by the Comelec count,” Lagman said. “And the election protest was dismissed because of the untimely demise of (her election rival) Fernando Poe, Jr., so legally there was no anchor for questioning that legitimacy,” he added.
He was no friend either to the Aquino administration in its early years, having led the House in junking the Aquino-initiated Truth Commission that would have gone after the infractions of the Arroyo administration.
But though Lagman was a steadfast Arroyo ally, that did not get him anywhere when it came to his advocacy of the Reproductive Health bill.
These days, his relationship with his former ally can be described as tepid at best.
They are “civil at a distance,” he said of Arroyo. He greets her via text during her birthday, and she sent him flowers when his mother passed away.
Despite the cold shoulder, he had forged on with the debates on the controversial bill and helped midwife its eventual passage in January this year.
For that, he has been described as the father of the RH law by advocates of reproductive health, and not just because his crusade was also that of a father taking on a daughter’s cause.
Said fellow RH bill author Senator Pia Cayetano: “Not to belittle the contribution of other male RH advocates—there were many of them—but it’s the most fitting description of the man who sacrificed so much time, hard work and patience to see this bill through.”
In doing so, the 70-year-old father of seven and grandfather of 14 earned the enmity of the influential Catholic Church. Like other pro-RH legislators, he soon found himself the target of regular attacks from the pulpit for supporting the bill.
His crusade might have affected his daughter Larah’s plan to have three priests co-officiate a thanksgiving Mass at the Mayon Skyline Park after her church wedding in Bicol was derailed because of their support for the bill, Lagman said. The priests were instructed not to be part of the thanksgiving ceremony, and two of them backed out, while the third held his ground, he recounted.
But it would take more than attacks from men of the cloth and the political opposition to get Lagman, hailed by fellow advocates as relentless, to back down from battle, a family trait perhaps since two of his brothers had paid dearly for similar activist politics.
The personal is political, he believes, adding that his own big family was part of the reason he supported the RH bill. The law is not against children or big families, he stressed; it was for bringing wanted children into the world.
Lagman himself has seven children (Krisel, Greco, Larah, Mahar, Mark, Karina and Andre) with wife Cielo, who he knew from childhood and with whom romance blossomed when they were in UP. They have 14 grandchildren, with a 15th due later this year.
Lagman is the eldest in a brood of five born to Cecilia, a public school teacher, and Pedro Eduardo, a prosecutor.
She was a feminist, he said of his mother. She had wanted to be represented as well in the name of their firstborn, so Eduardo and Cecilia became “Edcel.”
A product of the public school system, Lagman graduated with honors and earned his political science and law degrees from the University of the Philippines. The managing editor of the Philippine Collegian was an activist in college who joined protest rallies against the Vietnam War.
His brothers Hermon, a labor lawyer, and Filemon or “Popoy,” a well-known labor leader, might have gotten their start in activism from him, he said.
Hermon was a “gentle but steadfast advocate for labor rights,” Lagman recalled, while Popoy was “an uncompromising militant.” The Lagman brothers have similar causes, but believed in pursuing them through different means, he said. He and Hermon used the existing legal structure, while Popoy went underground with the Left.
When martial law was imposed in 1972, Lagman was just starting his law practice.
He could not openly join his brothers then because he had a growing family, Lagman said. Instead, he lawyered for martial law detainees and other victims of the Marcos regime.
His brothers’ foray into activism would end in tragedy.
Hermon disappeared in 1977 and remains missing, while Popoy was assassinated in 2001, when he had left the underground movement, giving rise to speculations that he had been felled by his former comrades in the Left.
But Lagman’s family believes there was no reason for the Left to target him since he had never abandoned the movement. Popoy might have joined the parliamentary struggle, but he had kept his close affinity with the objectives of his former comrades, the Albay congressman said.
The loss of two sons and the elusive resolution of their cases, had been very painful for his mother, Lagman said, but being the strong-willed woman that she was, Cecilia put up the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND) to help other families similarly affected by martial law. She remained active in the group until she passed away last year at 92.
After martial law, Lagman joined politics, believing that fair elections would now be possible. He had nurtured this dream since high school, when he saw that it took so long for the government to reconstruct the crumbling infrastructure in Albay, which lies along the typhoon path.
But he was a virtual stranger to his hometown by that time, since his family had moved to Caloocan when he was in high school. Many of the old people who knew him as a boy had died, and the younger generation was unaware of him.
To solve that, he convinced his old teachers and the woman who employed him as a newsboy to get onstage during his campaign to attest to his being a true son of Albay.
He won as Albay representative in 1987, completed three terms and was succeeded by daughter Krisel, a nurse by profession. In 2004, she opted out of a third term because of a scholarship abroad, prompting the elder Lagman to return to Congress.
In Congress, Lagman actively pursued the RH bill that had been languishing for years. Despite his uncompromising stand on the bill, opponents found him a worthy foe who did not drag them down the gutter.
“He has always been a thorough and well prepared proponent of the advocacies and bills he has. It was always a battle of wits. We never had a shouting match or ad hominem arguments. We always stuck to the issues,” conceded staunch RH bill critic and Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez.
Fellow advocates commended Lagman for his patience and tenacity.
Elizabeth Angsioco of the Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines marvelled at his tireless response to questions about the bill, even if the queries were illogical, impertinent, or insulting. At the same time, he was straightforward and never sugar-coated things.
“He responded to questions and comments in a manner that befits a legislator,” she added.
Gabriela Representative Luz Ilagan, saw Lagman as a good example for his colleagues.
“Confronting the myriad objections and challenging the conscientious and not so conscientious objectors with amazing self-control were lessons not found in textbooks,” Ilagan said.
Cayetano recalled how she and Lagman gravitated toward each other when the RH bill was inching toward the finish line to ensure its victory.
“Rep. Edcel was always calm, confident and composed, but when the bill finally passed (the) bicam (committee), I saw him break into a rare, wide smile. That’s when I realized we’ve won this chapter in the fight for RH rights,” she said.
Now on his last term in the House, Lagman has pushed for other controversial measures, among them the debt cap bill to limit the country’s debt service of foreign commercial loans (which did not pass), and the abolition of the death penalty (which passed).
Out of Congress, Lagman plans to return to his first love—law practice, exclusively representing workers and unions. He also plans to find more time for such uncharacteristic pursuits as collecting paintings and antiques.
“As I tell people, you don’t live by bread alone,” he explained.
An inveterate bargain hunter, he is particularly proud of getting valuable art and paintings at a good price, including a Hugo Yonzon find from an appliance store, and a Federico Alcuaz in an antiques shop, a skill he learned as a young boy who did the marketing for the family.
He even scores antique pieces from one of his favorite haunts, Annabel’s restaurant in Quezon City, where he managed to convince the owner to sell him some décor.
The importance of persistence is one of the lessons he learned from his mother, Lagman said, a lesson that has served him well in politics and one he will definitely use again.
Because he is not through with politics just yet, Lagman said. “You can retire from an elective public office, but you cannot retire from politics itself,” he added. •
