A few weeks ago, some Catholic bishops began to threaten Sen. Benigno ?Noynoy? Aquino III that they would not back his presidential candidacy if he continued to support legislation in Congress that would allocate government money for reproductive health (RH) services. One bishop even suggested mobilizing Catholics to vote as a bloc and, presumably, stop Noynoy from becoming president.

Admirably, Noynoy did not budge, saying he would continue to support RH legislation. That gained him points among RH advocates.

A few days ago, the administration?s candidate, Gilbert ?Gibo? Teodoro, also reiterated his support for RH legislation.

One all, I thought to myself, if we?re going to give scores to the current presidential aspirants. It looks like RH issues will keep cropping up and the candidates in the 2010 elections will have to be ready to state their stand. It?s probable too that Catholic bishops and conservative Catholics will be more vocal and aggressive in demanding that the candidates give their position on RH.

Those advocating RH should be gearing up as well and ask, more politely than the bishops, that the candidates share their views not just on RH legislation but also other RH-related issues. Not content with delaying the passage of the Magna Carta for Women because of provisions on family planning, conservative Catholics are now realizing, belatedly, that the new law also forbids schools from firing single pregnant women, which is a common practice among Catholic schools. They say they will oppose this provision.

The candidates? position on such issues will be most revealing, allowing us to probe into their views about gender, women, motherhood, public health, even national development.

Rizal Bill

I?ll continue to write about the candidates and the RH battles, but for today I thought we should look to another battle fought between legislators and conservative Catholics. This was fought way back in 1956, when Sen. Jose Laurel proposed Senate Bill 438 requiring all schools to teach about Rizal and his works. The bill also proposed that Rizal?s two novels, ?Noli? and ?Fili,? be made compulsory reading. It specified these had to be ?unexpurgated? (meaning uncensored) versions of the two novels.

My account of the 1956 events comes from an article, ?The Controversial Rizal Bill,? which appeared in the December 1956 issue of a magazine called Rizaliana, published by Kislap. From the title of the magazine alone, you can tell it was a publication that venerated Rizal.

Catholic bishops and conservative groups quickly protested the Laurel bill with three senators?Decoroso Rosales, Mariano Cuenco and Francisco Rodrigo?registering the strongest opposition. Opponents of the bill said Rizal was anti-Catholic and his books contained ?errors of church dogma.? Students, they said, were still immature and unprepared for the books. Catholic schools said their academic freedom was being violated.

Other public figures came out to support the bill. Manila Mayor Arsenio Lacson spoke on radio and criticized Filipinos who regarded Rizal only as ?a face on a P2 bill.? Two weeks after the radio statement, Lacson walked out of a Mass when the priest began to read a circular from their archbishop opposing the bill.

Judge Guillermo Guevarra said opposition to the bill was indirect support for Rizal?s Spanish prosecutors. He said Rizal was only attacking abusive members of the Catholic Church.

Heretics and the Inquisition

On April 22, a week after the bill was proposed, the Sunday papers carried a statement from the Catholic bishops describing Rizal?s works as violating Catholic canon law on heresy and schism. Voting on the bill had to be delayed so that public hearings could be held.

The organizations coming out against the bill included the Catholic Action of the Philippines, the Holy Name Society of the Philippines, the Legion of Mary, the Knights of Columbus and the Daughters of Isabela. Catholic schools said they would close down if the Rizal bill was enacted into law.

Sen. Claro Recto responded by saying that the Catholic schools would be nationalized if they closed down.

In the University of the Philippines, 100 faculty members signed a manifesto asking Congress to pass the law. Other organizations that spoke out in favor of the bill included the College Editors? Guild, the Knights of Rizal, the Women Writers of the Vernacular and Magtanggul Asa. One Catholic priest, Fr. Joaquin Jaromillo, spoke up in support of the bill, but the Catholic Welfare Organization immediately declared that the priest was not authorized to appear before the Senate.

Bishop Manuel Yap of Bacolod City threatened to ?punish? pro-Rizal bill legislators in the next elections. Claro M. Recto called the bishop the modern version of Torquemada, a member of the Spanish Inquisition responsible for the execution of some 10,000 ?heretics.?

Passions boiled over at a hearing on May 11, when Laurel walked out in protest of ?filibustering.? At the House of Representatives, Cebu Rep. Ramon Durano and Pampanga Rep. Emilio Cortez were so agitated that they ended up in a boxing bout.

All kinds of compromises were proposed, from expanding the courses to include several heroes to putting Rizal?s novels under lock and key in school libraries.

There were all kinds of maneuvering in both houses of Congress, but on May 17 it was finally approved. Despite all the fiery debates, the bill?s approval was swift, taking only about a month. The final version allowed students to seek exemption, for religious reasons, from reading ?Noli? and ?Fili,? but they would still be required to take Rizal courses. On June 12, President Ramon Magsaysay signed the bill as Republic Act 1425.

More than 50 years after the ?Rizal law,? Catholic Ateneo de Manila is at the forefront of Rizal studies, especially with fellow columnist and Rizalist Ambeth Ocampo teaching there. Ateneo?s main library is named after Rizal.

Over at ?progressive? UP, there is more ambivalence about Rizal, with some professors and students looking at him with disdain because he is considered too ?reformist.?

Provisions in the law mandating the translation of Rizal?s novels into other Philippine languages as well as government support for ?cheap, popular editions? were never implemented. Two years ago, Ambeth Ocampo noted in one of his columns that no student ever asked for exemption from reading ?Noli? and ?Fili.?