RH bill: ‘Poor excuse for taking easy way out’

The Reproductive Health bill has become hot topic in lunch conversations and kwentuhan even among us high school students. Many of us follow the news and read the papers to keep ourselves updated, but despite the pro-RH bill stories, videos and campaign materials, we stand firm in our belief: The RH bill is not only detrimental to the Filipino society, it is also a poor excuse for taking the easy way out and earn money in the process.

Religion and faith aside, we think the RH bill will just open another window for corruption. For a country struggling to eradicate poverty and enable its people to eat three meals a day, government is saying that it has the money for contraceptives, yet it can’t even seem to provide three complete meals a day for poor families. Doesn’t this sound quite strange and “fishy”?

Another point: Most government officials believe that the bill should be passed to put a stop to overpopulation and overcrowding in some cities and towns. Let’s first understand why these places are so densely populated while lots of others are not. It’s because Filipinos know that there are more opportunities in industrialized and urban centers. However, if government opens new opportunities in rural areas, chances are that the migration to urban centers would lessen—even stop.

Also, Section 10 of the bill states that the government will recognize family planning supplies as essential medicines and these supplies shall be included in the regular purchase of health medicines in all local hospitals and other government units. This is wrong because the bill will practically give everybody, young and adult alike, access to contraceptives anywhere. It will allow the procurement of contraceptives with government funds for distribution to everyone without due regard to marriage as an institution. This will encourage pre-marital sex, which in turn will undermine the institution of marriage. Nowhere in the bill do the authors uphold the Biblical principle and the Filipino value that marriage is sacred, and that sex should come within the context of marriage. In fact, the bill seeks the teaching of sex education to Grade 5 pupils rather than teach marriage as a foundation of the family.

The bill is supposed to address issues such as abortion and HIV/AIDS, but we think that it will only worsen these problems.

The RH bill also aims to promote women empowerment, but how can this be done when the bill itself is antiwomen? Most of the policies in the RH bill victimize women because they are the ones who will be most affected by these policies and they are the ones who will have to suffer the consequences if men want to engage in pre-marital sex.

The suggestion that the RH bill will solve the country’s problems and propel our nation to economic progress is misleading. If we really want to progress, why kill the innocent? Let’s punish the guilty instead.

—MARIEL LOPEZ, SOFIA PALAGANAS,

TRISH PENSON, VIA LORENZO,

 KASH SAN JUAN and PATRICIA HANNETT