Camille BalthazarMANILA, June 18, 2011—Though often touted by its proponents as a necessary measure that responds to the needs of women, the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill is nothing like the pro-women piece of legislation its supporters make it to be, asserted a lawyer during a four-hour forum at the Sta. Isabel College, Manila.
“Marami diyan ang nagsasabi na pro-women sila. ‘We are for women, they say, but I tell you, nothing can be more anti-women than the RH bill. Bakit? Sino ang pinapalagok ng pills? Babae. Sino ang nagkaka-kanser? Babae. Sino ang ginagamitan ng condoms? Babae,” said Atty. Marwil Llasos, one of three representatives of Filipinos for Life.
And yet who basks in the pleasure everytime, he asked the audience. “Mga lalaki.”
No self-respecting woman should support the bill “because it violates your personhood. Ang babae sa ating pananampalataya ay minamahal, inaaruga at inaalagaan,” he said to the audience, composed mostly of female high school and college students as well as faculty members, who at this point responded with thunderous applause to Llasos’ statements.
The lawyer, also a staff apologist of the Defensores Fidei Foundation, expressed misgivings about the controversial bill for its apparent basic assumption that persons are incapable of self-control and of understanding truths about human sexuality.
“[In the RH bill] you are reducing a human being into nothing but an object, he said, adding that its proponents fail to understand the difference between man and animals.
“A human being is rational. He is endowed by God with will. We have a will to say no to ourselves—pwede mong pagilin ang iyong sarili. Kung ang tao ay nakakaramdam ng sexual urges sapagka’t tao ka, maaari mong pigilin at maaari kang magtimpi,” he explained.
“Hindi po tayo parang mga aso sa kalye. If they are in heat they have to do the sexual act because they have no will to control their actions. But we are human.”
The RH Bill, or House Bill 4244, has been generating a growing opposition in recent months due to provisions on taxpayer-funded procurement and distribution of the “full range” of artificial contraceptives and reproductive health services, a mandatory six-year sex education program in all schools from Grade 5 to 4th year high school, and the required provision by employers of artificial contraceptives and reproductive health services to their employees.
Also included in the panel of speakers at the June 17 forum were Atty. Jo Imbong, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Legal Office Executive Secretary, Prof. Aliza Racelis of the University of the Philippines, and Anna Cosio, RN. (Diana Uichanco)
