When deeds speak

‘‘Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes are worn out.”

This Italian adage applies to much of what is  said against the controversial reproductive health bill, often at hell-fire rallies in Bacolod, Cebu, Baguio, even Quiapo.

Don’t backpedal on opposing the RH bill, Quiapo church’s Msgr. Clemente Ignacio counseled Rep. Manny Pacquiao. The Sarangani boxer dropped by to offer thanks to the Black Nazarene, after plastering Shane Mosley in Las Vegas.

At a  press conference, Pacquiao backed natural family planning (NFP) methods. “We should control ourselves. Condoms and abortions are sinful.”

“Talk does not cook rice,” the Chinese say. And excommunication threats don’t help over half a million women who, lacking family planning information, seek abortion from  hilots.

Abortion is illegal here. Scientists like Drs. Josefina V. Cabigon and Aurora Perez  of the UP Population Institute used indirect estimation techniques, e.g., data about women hospitalized for abortion complications, and tallied over 400,000 abortions in 1997. In 2005, that bolted to 473,400 abortions.

“Abortion rose in Manila by 41 percent to 52 percent,”  they said. In the Visayas, abortions  rose from 11 percent to  17 percent. Ateneo’s  Mary Racelis  suspects  that by 2010, abortions may have breached half a million mark.

“Contraception and abortion are specifically different evils,” Blessed John Paul II wrote in Evangelium Vitae. “The former contradicts the full truth of the sexual act as the proper expression of conjugal love, while the latter destroys the life of a human being.”

Anti-RH bill zealots often muddle abortion with contraception. Name-calling and labeling polarized Catholics on both sides of the RH bill into antagonistic factions, Asuncion David Maramba wrote in her column, “Blessed John Paul II and Sensus Fidelium.” (Inquirer, 5/10/11)

“Well done is better than well said.” So, if you prefer deeds, look at Misamis Oriental and Camiguin. There, government agencies and church sidestepped the “zero-sum proposition” where concerned citizens are simply asked to say either yes or no to the RH bill. Instead, they cooperate in essential population programs that scrupulously respect conscience and each other’s sphere.

“Ninety percent of 58 parishes and chaplaincies in the Cagayan de Oro archdiocese trained more than 2,000 natural family planning volunteer counselors,” Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, S.J. wrote in “All-Natural Family Planning—Going Beyond the RH Bill.”

Today, these counselors, who live in nearly 500 chapel (or barangay) communities, provide information and follow-up on all NFP methods. Over 22,000 couples were served.

NFP trainors of the Misamis Oriental government conducted 345 barangay classes in 24 towns over the past two years. In Cagayan de Oro, the city government trained 721 NFP service providers in 62 barangays.

“They asked us for assistance,” Ledesma wrote. “Assisting local governments is engagement… We keep the Church’s NFP program separate and not dependent on the LGU’s program.”

The archdiocese made available “services of our NFP trainors, sharing our training manuals, which include values formation.” The LGUs issued executive orders and set aside their own budgets for the promotion solely of NFP.

Ledesma stresses “core values” that will shape future efforts to serve the people in more remote areas. “The first non-negotiable principle is the dignity of human life from the moment of conception.”

A second core value is responsible parenthood. “[In] bringing new human life into the world, they should strive to beget only those children whom they can raise up in a truly human and Christian way,” Filipino bishops stressed in their 1991 Second Plenary Council. “Towards this end, they need to plan their families according to the moral norms taught by the Church.”

NFP is the third core value. “Periodic continence … is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality.”

And the fourth “is to enable couples to make a morally responsible choice according to dictates of a right conscience.”

The Church seeks values formation. To reach responsible choice, information on all scientifically based NFP methods must be provided. Ledesma stresses, “This is a pastoral imperative.” The language evokes the image of the Good Shepherd.

“It is not for us to choose beforehand what the ‘best NFP method’ is for couples. Neither did Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s encyclical ‘On the Regulation of Birth,”’ Ledesma added.

Cagayan de Oro’s all-NFP program includes six modern scientific methods: Basal Body Temperature, Billings Cervical Mucus, Sympto-Thermal, Lactational Amenorrhea, Standard Days and Two Days.

About two-thirds use the Standard Days Method, a simplified, standardized calendar-based method of NFP. Georgetown University crafted SDM through computer simulation and statistical probability.

“Provided it is not mixed with contraceptives, SDM … is a natural family planning method and is consistent with the moral teaching of the Catholic Church,” bishops said in January 2009.

Individual bishops may promote SDM or not. But “the bishop may not prohibit any couple in his diocese from using SDM as their method of natural family planning,” the consensus statement adds.

Both Church and government in Cagayan de Oro gave us all an example of service and fidelity to values. Does that point a way out of the policy deadend that today’s confrontation on the RH bill has shoved all of us into?

“When deeds speak, words are nothing,” the African proverb says.