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“It goes against Gods law”
Clasping her bible, the frail senior was among the last to leave the sanctity of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Vancouver last Sunday.
“I was praying to God to help our church stop the government from allowing the birth control law,” said the senior, who wanted to be known only as Beatrice.
“It goes against Gods law,” said the mother of six and grandmother of 10, who moved from the slums of Manila to Vancouver almost two decades ago.
Like her, Filipinos around the world have drawn uncompromising lines as the Southeast Asian nation grapples with a birth control law that has divided its people.
The relentless battle by the Catholic Church to derail the birth control law in the Philippines entered its final phase at the Supreme Court last week, with the verdict to have a monumental impact on millions of poor Filipinos.
The court began hearing arguments against the family planning law that President Benigno Aquino, defying intense church pressure, helped steer through parliament late last year.
The law passed in December after being stalled for 10 years by the resistance efforts of the Roman Catholic Church, which included threatening Aquino with excommunication. Just months after its passage, Roman Catholic groups managed to halt the new law’s scheduled March 31 implementation by petitioning the Supreme Court.
Archbishop Socrates Villegas, who was elected president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines recently, said he and his fellow prelates are attending the opening hearing as “conscience troublemakers.”
“We want to trouble consciences so every conscience listens to the voice of God,” said Villegas, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
“We ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten and inspire the lawyers who would be arguing for our position... and enlighten the justices of the Supreme Court,” Bishop Gabriel Reyes told a mass.
The law requires government health centres to hand out free condoms and birth control pills, benefiting tens of millions of the country’s poor who would not otherwise have access to them.
More than a quarter of the Philippines’ nearly 100 million people live on the equivalent of 62 cents a day, according to government data.
The law also mandates that sex education be taught in schools and that public health workers receive family planning training, while post-abortion medical care was legalised.
Proponents say the Reproductive Health law will slow the country’s population growth, which is one of the fastest in the world, and reduce the number of mothers dying in childbirth.
“To deny RH services from our people would be a denial of human rights and a grave social injustice, especially against women and the poor,” said Senator Pia Cayetano, one of the architects of the law.
The Supreme Court suspended the law in March so that the judges could hear the 15 formal petitions from a range of Church-backed groups arguing that it was unconstitutional.
The opponents argue it violates various elements of the constitution, including those on protecting the sanctity of the family and guaranteeing freedom of religion.
“It is a population control measure that denies the God-given right to reject contraception,” Franciso Tatad, a former senator representing the petitioners, told the Supreme Court judges in opening remarks.
The Church wields strong influence in the Philippines, a former Spanish colony where roughly 80 per cent of the population remain Catholic.
Church leaders have helped lead two revolutions that toppled unpopular presidents in recent Philippine history, and continue to insist they have a right to influence the parliamentary and legal branches of government.
“When the rights of mother and child are endangered, when the family is being attacked, you can expect the Church to speak up,” Bishop Socrates Villegas said.
Opinion surveys over many years have shown strong public support for birth control legislation.And despite criticism from church leaders, Aquino enjoys near record-high popularity ratings half way through his six-year term.
Lawyers involved said a verdict could be months away.
Meanwhile, Church officials and nongovernmental organizations in the Philippines are questioning the Manila’s reports of economic growth.
President Benigno Aquino III is expected to highlight his anti-corruption agenda and the economic growth seen in the first half of his term when he addresses the joint session of the Philippines’ 16th Congress at its formal opening July 22.
However, church leaders and nongovernmental groups hope the president’s emphasis will be on narrowing the gap between rich and poor Filipinos, with priority placed on agrarian reform.
In the first quarter of 2013, the Philippines economy posted a 7.8 percent growth in gross domestic product, the highest growth rate recorded under Aquino’s term. The rise marked the third consecutive quarter of more than 7 percent growth, according to the National Statistical Coordination Board.
The statistical board credited the GDP boost to “upbeat business and consumer sentiment” and sustained government capital expenditure.
Aquino’s allies in Congress and the Department of Justice are expected to push ahead with the president’s campaign platform of anti-corruption.
Speaking on the church-run radio station Veritas 846, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines president Archbishop Jose Palma of Cebu challenged Aquino to tell the truth about the country’s economy.
The national statistics board reports 28 percent of the 96.8 million Filipinos live in poverty, and Palma questioned the government’s claim of economic growth when so many Filipinos are going hungry.
The gap between poor and rich Filipinos is widening, said Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, chairman of the bishops’ National Secretariat for Social Action-Justice and Peace.
The Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines also urged Benigno Aquino to give priority to distributing land to farmers and to provide training and support services so farmers can manage the land.
“While we recognize that the government’s anti-corruption campaign is very strong, good government is not only about carving out corruption,” said Carmelite Fr. Marlon Lacal, the association’s executive secretary.
Aquino should continue the country’s labor export program, which he called “our milking cow.” Between April and September 2011, approximately 2.2 million Filipinos left the country to work abroad, according to the 2011 Survey on Overseas Filipinos from the National Statistics Office. Church groups working with migrants place the number even higher, estimating at least 4 million overseas workers, including undocumented migrants.
These overseas workers sent a record $21.4 billion back to the Philippines in 2012, the Central Bank reported in January. Remittances from overseas workers accounted for 8.5 percent of the country’s total economic output for 2012, the bank reported.
Aquino was the clear winner in the May 13 midterm elections. Of the 12 Senate seats up for grabs, nine were won by “Team Pinoy” coalition candidates. (Pinoy is Aquino’s nickname.) The opposition United Nationalist Alliance picked up the remainder. When the Senate reconvenes at the end of June, the administration’s coalition will number 15 in the 24-member chamber.
In the House of Representatives, Aquino’s Liberal Party won a solid 110 seats, which with his coalition partners will allow him to maintain an overwhelming majority in the lower chamber, becoming the country’s only president to enjoy a clear majority in Congress since democracy was restored in 1986.
The incoming Congress will have a total of 292 members, the largest in its history, made up of 234 legislators elected from districts and 58 representatives elected by a party-list system, which seeks to give equal representation to underrepresented sectors, parties and causes.
– with agencies and NCR Philippines.
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