Tag: RH bill

FOR THE first time in Philippine election history, Catholic lay groups united to aggressively uphold the pro-life stance of the Catholic Church through the endorsement of candidates who would help protect family and the sanctity of life, despite the passage of the Reproductive Health (RH) law last year.

The “White Vote Movement” had endorsed Nancy Binay, JV Ejercito, Richard Gordon, Gringo Honasan, Marwil Llasos, Mitos Magsaysay, Koko Pimentel, Antonio Trillanes IV, Cynthia Villar and Juan Miguel Zubiri for senator, based on their positions on family and life issues such as RH, abortion, divorce and same-sex marriage.

Going against the grain, going against the tide, going against popularity surveys, the University of Santo Tomas has upheld the stand of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) condemning the Reproductive Health (RH) bill as an anti-poor, social-engineering measure that not only denigrates the natural law but also runs roughshod over maternal health, kowtows to the contraceptive imperialism of the West, and generally blames the poor and their alleged overpopulation for the ills of society, when it’s the Philippine state and its depredations—its mismanagement and appalling corruption—that are to blame.

A DIFFERENT show of people-power was staged last March 25 at the Quirino Grandstand when the clergy and religious, pro-life groups, and the Church as a whole gathered to call for the abolition of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill.

During the Mass, attended by some 200,000 to 300,000 people, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales called for respect for life and the junking of the RH bill. Cardinal Rosales said that despite the bill’s avowals of “responsible parenthood” and “sexual responsibility,” its bias for contraception and “safe sex” is very evident, so that it is hardly expected to foster authentic responsibility and discipline, two virtues, he said, that the people and the nation need. He added that people’s indifference to life, if not their utter disrespect of it, could lead to moral decay.