There is no need to pass the RH bill because most of its provisions are already embodied in Sec. 17 and 19 Magna Carta for women law. It states there that the government should provide women access to the following:
- Prenatal and postnatal care,
- Information regarding all types of family planning methods,
- Access to family planning methods as long as they are ethically and medically safe,
- Sex education,
- Obstetric and gynecological care regarding pregnancy complications and the prevention of AIDS, HIV, STD, and the like,
- Spouses have the right to decide to space their children, etc.
The IRR of the Magna Carta which was passed in 2009 directs the Commmission on Women under the Office of the President to oversee that the provisions are implemented by the DOH, DILG, CHR, DEP-ED, CHED, DSWD, DOLE.
In the IRR, it also states that in order for the law to be successful, the government should tie up with all LGUs so that midwives, doctors, birthing facilities should be put in place to take care of the health needs of all to ensure that we minimize maternal and child deaths.
If you remove the common provisions between the two, the only thing left is the provision regarding the funding of the procurement of condoms, contraceptives and injectibles.
But the government is already providing funding at present since the budget that Pnoy wanted passed last year already has 932 million for family planning and maternal care. Under that, there is 800 million to procure condoms and contraceptives. So why even bother passing the bill? Pnoy went ahead and made a de facto RH law anyway?
It is also sad to note that in the same budget , Pnoy only put 1 billion for the procurement of medicines to cure all types of sicknesses from baby to adult. I vehemently opposed this as they placed 800 million for condoms and only 1 billion for medicines. Worse, under the RH bill, they want to consider contraceptives and condoms as essential medicines. What does it cure to justify that ?
It is lamentable that the pro RH solons keep on insisting that the only opposition to the bill can be derived from religious beliefs only. There are other reasons like scientific, and the practicality of passing it. If they want to fund it with 3 billion pesos, which government agency and what programs of government will suffer in next year’s budget just to accommodate this?
The Pnoy administration already slashed the FF budgets to help alleviate people from poverty:
Tertiary education scholarship – 1.3 billion down to 900 million
Tesda – 5 billion down to 700 million,
Housing – 10 billion down to 5 billion,
Assistance to OFW – 100m down to 27 million,
Agriculture – slashed in half,
DAR – slashed in half, etc.
I don’t believe in CCT so I don’t consider that as a poverty alleviation measure.
