Contact Details

Rm. N-411, House of Representatives, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines
+63 2 931 5497, +63 2 931 5001 local 7370

Press Statements

 

  • Rep. Edcel C. Lagman
  • Independent – Albay
  • 25 July 2012
  • 0916-6406737 / 0918-9120137

 

 

 

  • LAGMAN: BISHOPS’ ‘OPEN WAR’ ON RH
  • OFF-TANGENT AND MYOPIC

 

 

          The rampage of an “open war” by some Catholic bishops in reaction to President Aquino’s endorsement of responsible parenthood in his third SONA is off-tangent and myopic.

 

          While some clerics advised the President “to listen to the voice of the people”, they fail to realize that the President is in fact supportive of the people who have spoken overwhelmingly for the enactment of the RH bill which includes responsible parenthood.

 

          In fact, the most applauded statement of the President in his SONA was his endorsement of responsible parenthood.

 

          Survey after survey, where the majority of the respondents are Catholics, had documented empirically that Filipinos want (a) the speedy approval of the RH bill; (b) government funds be used for family planning including the purchase of non-abortive contraceptives; and (c) candidates with a family planning platform be elected.

 

         The comment by a ranking bishop that “poverty, not population, must be eliminated” completely misses the point. Poverty will remain a nightmare to teeming millions of Filipinos if parents and couples are not empowered to fully and freely determine the number and spacing of their children.

 

         The direct linkage between poverty, ills in health and backlogs in education is too graphic and obvious to be missed by some Catholic bishops.

 

         The President is aware that a sustainable development agenda, particularly on education and health, is not likely to succeed unless the population problem is simultaneously and positively addressed by government so much so that the premises of the President’s endorsement are the rising maternal mortality rate, improvement of women’s health and solution of the backlogs in teachers, classrooms, books and desks wherein the common denominator which aggravate these problems is the ballooning population.

 

        The President’s endorsement of responsible parenthood, which is identical with the salient features of the reproductive health bill, is a reiteration of his recommendation to the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) and the Congress that HB No. 4244 is a priority measure.

 

          HB NO. 4244, the consolidated RH bill, is entitled “An Act Providing for a Comprehensive Policy on Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health, and Population and Development, and for Other Purposes”.

 

         No less than the President in his letter dated 08 February 2011 to Rep. Edcel C. Lagman, the principal author of the RH bill, on their “common advocacy” reiterated his following position on responsible parenthood which parallels the reproductive health bill:

 

“1. I am against abortion.

 

“2. I am in favor of giving couples the right to choose how to best manage their families so that in the end, their welfare and that of their children are best served.

 

“3. The State must respect each individual’s right to follow his or her conscience and religious convictions on matters and issues pertaining to the unity of the family and the sacredness of human life from conception to natural death.

 

“4. In a situation where couples, especially the poor and the disadvantaged ones, are in no position to make an informed judgment, the State has the responsibility to so provide.

 

“5. In the range of options and information provided to couples, natural family planning and modern methods shall be presented as equally available.”

 

           Likewise, the RH bill is against abortion and prohibits abortion as a method of family planning; the core concept of the RH bill is freedom of informed choice of parents, couples and women; religious belief is guaranteed; there is reasonable bias for the poor; all methods of family planning, from the natural to the modern, are equally made accessible provided they are medically safe, legal (not abortive) and truly effective.

Press Statements

 

  • REP. EDCEL C. LAGMAN
  • Principal Author of HB No. 4244 (Reproductive Health Bill)
  • Independent – Albay
  • 18 July 2012
  • 0916-6406741 / 0918-9201277

 

 

LAGMAN: TIME IS NOW FOR RH

 

               “Lack of time” should not be made the scapegoat for lack of political will in failing to enact the long pending reproductive health bill.

             Time is not a problem for the House of Representatives. It has always found time to fast track the approval of measures which the leadership wants enacted by the plenary in a couple of weeks.

            If the Senate has the time to vote on its counterpart RH bill, why should the House find time elusive and running out on an allied measure which has been principally nurtured in the House.

              “If there is a will, there is a way” is a truism in lawmaking.

              A case in point is the swift approval of HB No. 4146 cancelling the elections in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and prescribing the Presidential appointment of Officers-in-Charge (OICs).

          Another is the passage with alacrity of the Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations (GOCCs) Governance Act which is ostensibly intended to streamline appointments in and operations of GOCCs even as the innovations violate the security of tenure of incumbents and derogate the power of the Civil Service Commission, which is a constitutional body.

          Unlike the ARMM and GOCC bills which had inordinately short legislative gestation, the current RH bill and its precursors had been debated upon inside and outside the Congress for almost one and a half decades.

          If there is apparent time for Cha-Cha, which is unpopular, why should there be no time for RH when numerous and repeated surveys have documented that Filipinos want the RH bill enacted into law soonest.

          After President Benigno Aquino III has unequivocally endorsed to the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) and to Congress the RH bill (HB No. 4424) as a priority measure, the House leadership must take the bull by its horns and schedule the resumption of debates, amendments and voting within an expeditious timeframe.

           There is sufficient time from late July up to the full month of August 2012 to vote on the RH bill before the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) is set for plenary consideration in September.

Press Statements
Rep. Edcel C. Lagman
Independent, Albay
03 July 2012
 
LAGMAN: JBC, PNOY ACCOUNTABLE
FOR CHOICE OF NEXT CHIEF JUSTICE
 
 
          Nominees for Supreme Court Chief Justice have full discretion to accept or decline their nomination, but it is for the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) to recommend for presidential appointment at least three of the most qualified and truly independent-minded nominees from whom the President will make his choice.
 
          However, the buck stops with President Benigno Aquino III as the appointing authority.
 
          Since the President was instrumental in the impeachment of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona by the House of Representatives and he campaigned publicly for his conviction by the Senate, he must then desist from appointing as Corona’s successor any nominee who participated in the trial of Corona either as prosecutor, judge or witness, or one who is perceived to have coveted the position of Chief Magistrate.
 
          The standards of not being beholden to the appointing power, impartiality, credibility and independence must constitute the same inflexible yardstick by which the President ought to measure the next Chief Justice.
 
          What were perceived as the negative factors which rooted out Corona must be the same factors which must weed out potential errant nominees.
 
 
                                                                          

Press Statements

 

  • Rep. Edcel C. Lagman
  • Independent, Albay
  • 04 June 2012

 

 

  •  LAGMAN RECOGNIZED AS
  • GLOBAL RH CHAMPION

 

 

        Rep. Edcel C. Lagman (Independent, Albay) was recently recognized by the European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (EPFPD) as an International Legislative Champion for his indispensable role in advancing the enactment of a reproductive health law in the Philippines.

 

          The award was conferred to Lagman in absentia by EPFPD President George Tsereteli on 25 May 2012 during the Fifth International Parliamentarians’ Conference on the Implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action (IPCI/ICPD) in Istanbul, Turkey.

 

          Lagman is the first awardee of this global honor which is envisioned by EPFPD “as a concrete way to draw the attention of IPCI’s participants to the real champions that are at work in the Population and Development field” and to “recognize the individual actors from the political field who are being particularly outstanding in pushing the achievement of the ICPD agenda.”

 

            In his speech, Tsereteli commended Lagman for being “an outspoken advocate of sexual and reproductive health rights in a very hostile environment, where religious forces within and around government have a huge influence on the most personal aspects of women’s reproductive health, rights and choices.”

 

            He underscored that the award was to “honor the efforts of the author of the Reproductive Health Bill, who has tirelessly fought the variety of ways in which opposition forces have deliberately tried to impede, water down and block his efforts.”

 

             A staunch and indefatigable advocate not only of reproductive health but also women’s rights, Lagman has often stressed that the ability to plan and space one’s children is a basic human right and neglecting the right to reproductive health is equivalent to compromising the wellbeing of women and children.

 

            The award was received on behalf of Lagman by Rep. Raymond Palatino of Kabataan Partylist and Rep. Emmeline Aglipay of Diwa Partylist, fellow reproductive health advocates who represented the country in Istanbul.

 

             President Benigno Aquino III has consistently committed to endorse to Congress the prioritization of the passage of the RH bill after the termination of the impeachment proceedings.

Press Release

 

  • Rep. Edcel C. Lagman
  • Independent-Albay
  • 14 May 2012
  • 0916-6406737 / 0918-9120137

 

 

 

          A legislative postponement of the barangay elections is not unconstitutional because the Constitution itself does not prescribe the nature of the election and terms of office of barangay officials, and on the contrary it gives to Congress the plenary authority and discretion to fix the term of office of barangay officials.

 

         This is the categorical position of Rep. Edcel C. Lagman (Independent-Albay) to refute the statement of election lawyer Romulo Macalintal who said that the “proposed law calling for postponement of the barangay elections scheduled in October is unconstitutional.”

 

       Lagman stated that any proposed statute postponing the barangay elections is constitutional and consistent with the constitution which provides under Section 8 of Article X “the term of office of elective local officials, except barangay officials, which shall be determined by law, shall be three years”.

 

         In other words where the Constitution has prescribed a three-year term for local officials and Members of Congress, the determination of the term of barangay officials has been left to Congress.

 

         Lagman cited the latest Supreme Court decision in COMELEC vs. Cruz (2009) where it was ruled that “the Constitution has left to Congress the discretion to determine the length of term and term limitations of the barangay officials.”

 

        Consequently, there is no constitutional provision which is violated if the barangay elections scheduled in October will be postponed or reset.

 

         Historically and invariably it was the Congress which for many instances has postponed previous barangay elections and changed the term limitations of barangay officials.

 

          The postponement of barangay elections does not extend the term of office of the incumbent but only allows them to hold over pending the election of their successors in order to preserve the continuity of government services.

 

          The application of the hold over principle of barangay officials has been sustained by the Supreme Court in ADAP vs.COMELEC (2007). In fact, Section 5 of RA9164 providing for synchronized Barangay and Sangguniang elections provides that “all incumbent barangay officials and Sangguniang Kabataan officials shall remain in office unless sooner removed or suspended for cause until their successors shall have been elected and qualified.”

 

        The proposal to increase the term of barangay officials from three to five years has precedent in law. It is completely immaterial for barangay officials to have longer terms than municipal officials since municipal officials are not the superiors of barangay officials and have no control over them.

 

           Under R.A. No. 6679 the term of office of barangay officials was five (5) years.