President faces pulpit power

The intense debate over a proposed law that would mandate the Philippine government to provide all forms of family planning to couples, including contraceptives has become an “all-out war”, the nation’s powerful Catholic Church has declared.
Catholic Church leaders have vowed to mount a campaign opposing the family planning measure using pulpits and red-colored pro-life bumper stickers.
Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles said the Church should step up its “all-out war” against the Reproductive Health (RH) bill that would espouse and make available the use of artificial birth control methods among Filipino couples.
“It’s natural for us to declare an all-out war against the RH bill,” said Arguelles over Church-run Radio Veritas. “We should persist to campaign against it and to educate the people against the legislative measure.”
Catholic bishops agreed to the prolife advocates’ idea of asking people hostile to the RH bill being pushed in Congress to tie red ribbons and put up anti-RH bill stickers and posters in their homes, business establishments and even in their vehicles.
Cotabato Auxiliary Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo has expressed his support for the sticker campaign to fight the RH bill. He said it was one way of raising public awareness on the family planning bill.
The Philippines, a predominantly Catholic nation, has one of the highest population growth rates in the region, with at least three babies born every minute.
The bill has become a controversial initiative in Congress because of the strong opposition of the Catholic Church against any government efforts to promote artificial contraception.
The Philippines current population is estimated at 94 million.
“The next step of the Church is to continue with its own ways of propagating and promoting the Gospel of Life and preaching the sanctity of life,” said Msgr. Juanito Figura, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). Figura announced in a news conference the Church’s decision to discontinue its dialogue with Malacañang after President Benigno Aquino III disclosed plans to implement his own responsible parenthood agenda, which bishops deemed as the same as House Bill No. 4244.
Cotabato Auxiliary Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo has expressed his support for the sticker campaign to fight the RH bill. He said it was one way of raising public awareness on the family planning bill.
He even suggested that families can also put red ribbons outside their homes. Red symbolizes life, noted the prelate.
Some members of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) challenged President Aquino to jail them as the “war” between “pro-lifers” and family planning advocates escalated.
The challenge was hurled by Archbishop Ramon Arguelles of Lipa City in Batangas province in Southern Luzon in Luzon in reaction to Aquino’s announcement that sedition charges await those who advocate civil disobedience if the reproductive health or family planning bill is enacted into law.
As part of the campaign, pro-lifers threatened they would not pay taxes which Aquino said that even as a threat it already constituted a “serious criminal offense.”
Arguelles told “CBCP News,” the official news service of the influential religious group: “He can put us all in jail. We are willing to pay the price to save the unborn from modern Herods and save the executioners from the grasp of the evil one.”
Arguelles also said Aquino sounded like the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos when his mother the late global democracy icon president Corazon Aquino called for civil disobedience.
“What happened to his mother’s terrorist and his father’s tormentor?” the outspoken senior Catholic leader asked.
Joining Arguelles in assailing Aquino was Bishop Arturo Bastes of Sorsogon province in the Bicol Region who said: “Let him (Aquino) charge all of us bishops, priests, religious and all the faithful with sedition because it is better to obey God rather than men and immoral laws.”
In Malacanang, Abigail Valte, the deputy presidential spokesman, appealed for calm and sobriety as she urged the bishops to stop turning the debate on the issue into a personal battle with Aquino.
“We have different positions here, but probably we should explain our positions within the means of the law. That is what the President is saying. There is room for debate, it doesn’t have to degenerate to illegal acts or anything like that,” Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang told reporters.
“It would be better that we calm down a bit and discuss the issue at hand,” the President’s deputy spokesperson, Abigail Valte, said over the state radio, adding that Aquino was merely reminding that Filipinos have a civil duty to pay their taxes used to finance public programs.
Aquino, a 51-year-old bachelor who has said he is prepared to face Church excommunication in supporting the RH bill, countered that tax boycotts were seditious and could lead to criminal cases.
Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo called for calm and a “wait-and-see attitude” but also added that, in the end, Catholics have to “obey God and not man.”
Sen. Panfilo Lacson agreed: “If they don’t want to pay taxes, they’re liable for tax evasion. If we allow this, what about the rest of the 94 million Filipinos who depend on social services? If we pay and you don’t pay and you don’t get punished, that’s unfair.”
As the debate rages, Aquino may also have a tougher time convincing the leaders of the Senate to pass the bill, Philippine media said.