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
  • Office of the Minority Leader Edcel C. Lagman
  • 03 June 2011
  • 09189120137 / 09166406737

  

          The Reproductive Health bill is definitely independent of and separate from the divorce bill.

           The objectives of the RH bill are encompassing with respect to the following:

           1. Protection and promotion of reproductive health rights based on freedom of informed choice;

           2. Promotion of women and children’s health consistent with the country’s commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which include the reduction of maternal and infant mortality and universal access to family planning by 2015; and

           3. Enhancement of human development determinants like education, health, food security, employment, mass housing and the environment, which are all adversely affected by an inordinate population growth rate (PGR).

           Although both the RH and divorce bills are progressive initiatives, reproductive health has primarily a societal orientation while legalizing divorce has basically an individual motivation.

           The doctrinal opposition from the Catholic hierarchy which has become divisive should not be exacerbated by another legislative proposal which has religious implications.

           All efforts of RH advocates and supporters inside and outside Congress must be mustered towards the enactment of the RH bill which is at the threshold of passage.

Press Release

 

           The resignation from government of an errant presidential friend like former Director Ernesto Diokno of the Bureau of Corrections will not compensate for the improvident and partisan exoneration of other appointees who have breached the law or committed culpable negligence in the present administration.

           Moreover, the agenda of vindictiveness aggravates the erosion of President Aquino’s popularity and trust ratings, while partisan propaganda cannot cover up for the feeble leadership and absence of economic vision of the Aquino administration.

           Even as all economic indicators are bleak like investors’ and consumers’ confidence, gross domestic product (GDP), inflation, unemployment, business competitiveness and the corruption index, President Aquino gloats over contrived savings and cash surpluses.

           Appropriated funds should not be immobilized in a showcase, but must be released with dispatch and utilized with reasonable alacrity to finance government operations and prime up the economy.

           Forced savings are like drugs locked up in a medicine cabinet while an epidemic rages.

Press Release

 

 

          “The recent SWS report that adult unemployment is steadily increasing clearly exposes the detrimental effects of a lack of a comprehensive policy on reproductive health and family planning on our people.”

           This is the reaction of Minority Leader Edcel C. Lagman to the SWS survey which revealed that 11.3 million or 27.2% of Filipinos over the age of 18 are jobless or an increase of 1.4 million jobless over the 9.9 million unemployed in November 2010.

           According to Lagman, who is the principal author of the RH bill in the House of Representatives, “this development should spur Congress to finally enact into law the reproductive health bill because there are empirical data which document the links between high fertility and resulting population growth to persistent poverty and wage stagnation in developing countries like the Philippines.”

           Lagman explained that based on research conducted by respected economists Ernesto Pernia and Aniceto Orbeta, rapid population growth expands the labor supply and this will translate into either a decline in wages or an increase in unemployment if there is no commensurate increase in employment opportunities.

           He also cited a World Bank study that shows that rapid population growth is likely to depress wages at the bottom end of the pay scale in developing countries where there are disproportionately high levels of fertility among the lowest income groups.

           “This means workers in the lowest economic quintile who are precisely the ones who are already the most impoverished would also be the ones most affected by falling wages”, Lagman added.

           He underscored that the RH bill is a health-oriented and development-driven measure that will not only help women and couples plan and space their children. It is also a development tool that will assist the government in its anti-poverty campaign as there is indisputable evidence of the linkage between population and sustainable human development.