THE CROOKED science of numb intellectuals has time and again struck humanity with blight, reducing men to figures and formulating general equations that basically miss the point about everything. This is again evident at this time, when in the name of “development,” “family planning,” and “women’s empowerment,” some people have convinced themselves that it is all right to serve innocent lives — the women, the youth, and the unborn — at the altar of death.
While trying desperately to conceal the vile beneath their hoax-based and self-serving Reproductive Health Bill No. 5043 (RH Bill), Rep. Edcel Lagman and his supporters have entangled themselves in the tentacles of radical positivism: they seem to have forgetten that they are dealing with their fellow men, who are not just faceless economic factors that can and must be manipulated. They raise a bogus alarm so as to foist a system — nay, a religion! — of artificial selection that benefits the state and the ideology of social engineering at the expense of the poor and the powerless.
What are these cynical doomsday soothsayers talking about when they say the bill aims to ameliorate poverty? Contrary to their claims, they only feel repugnance at the poor and an “overpopulated Philippines”; this attitude basically links overpopulation and poverty together (which has no scientific basis, according to Nobel-winning economists) and blames the poor for their poverty. They paint overpopulation in apocalyptic terms that would even shame St. John at Patmos!
By raising the bogey of overpopulation and equating poverty with it, Lagman, the pro-choice movement, the UP economists and the Ateneo 14 have basically made poverty the innate quality of the poor — poverty as the lot and birthright of the poor! — so that, to their distorted view of the world, the best way to get rid of poverty is to stop poverty right at birth!
Aren’t there shades here of Herod who, in order to perpetuate his rule and stop any claimant to his throne, ordered all the new-born contracepted or aborted by the sword!
The Varsitarian has seen through the lies and deception of Lagman and his ilk. But many have attacked the V’s editorials against Lagman’s birth-control bill merely on how the editorials were written — polemical and virulent — but without bothering to look at the substance of the arguments.
Be that as it may, the Varsitarian has made a crucial stand against the anti-life conspiracy. In the face of criticism, it has no regrets.
Personally, I have been appalled at the shallowness of the criticisms against the Varsitarian, some of them from supposedly learned people. Despite protesting that their hearts bleed for the poor (so they would rather have Lagman’s religion contracept/abort them), these bleeding hearts have hardly immersed themselves with the poor.
Five years ago, in a poor fishing community on a very small island in Bulacan, a fisherman railed against politicians and businessmen who had exploited them. But he had high hopes for the establishment of a missionary school. Having a spouse and son, he expressed the hope that “kahit edukasyon lang sana, maibigay ko sa kanila.”
The encounter with the fisherman made me realize that the poor have simple needs. They ask for food, clothing and shelter. But Lagman and the learned people from UP and Ateneo would rather shower them with condoms and contraceptives worth hundreds of millions of pesos. In the case of the fisherman, he was asking for education. But Lagman et. al. would rather give him six years of sex education whose modules and instructionals would be worth tens of millions on top of the tens and millions of pesos already wasted on defective textbooks!
What do all these mean? Lagman’s birth-control and sex-education bill looks at the fisherman and other poor people like him as a hindrance to achieving a prosperous economy. Therefore, their births should be checked; the women should be ligated, the men vasectomized.
Closing this, I only have one appeal to all the learned out there: Don’t just read people in books.
The RH Bill’s enactment will not hinder education or health services. In fact, it will improve them. The number of children having to cramp into rooms will be reduced, improving the children’s capacity to learn and the teacher’s burden. And it would surely prevent the hundreds of thousands of women who have to kill their baby every year. It also protects the mother’s health, as more children increases the risk of mortality.
Education is another issue. Don’t use it to combat RH Bill cause it doesn’t really do anything. You said so yourself, millions are wasted on faulty textbooks… So the issue in Education is mismanagement and corruption. Not a lack of funds.
And how can you say that these “bleeding-heart, learned people” do not know the poor? Are you sure? Maybe they just view the poor’s plight differently.
And the statistics on Filipinos supportign the RH Bill clearly shows that you are the one who has it wrong. The people want RH Bill.
Or at least, they want a choice.
RH Bill will not force people to use contraception,
it will simply make it available for those who cannot afford them if they choose to do so.
So please don’t claim to be the one who understands what the poor want. I’m sure if you asked that fisherman’s wife if she wanted to avail of free contraception, she would say yes.
Lao – what kind of car do you drive? Have a laptop? Desktop PC? Xbox? Playstation? Party with your friends? Nice watch? Cool clothes? Trips to the Mall?
You are getting a good education at your Parent’s purse strings yet you dare – in your luxury – to tell the poor how to live? Or to tell us of your ‘extensive research’ on fishermen?
Frankly, son – you know nothing of the world yet. Wide-eyed children see it in black and white. Maturity will show you the shades of gray later.