The May 18 editorial cartoon of the Inquirer reminded me of Justice Arturo Brion’s separate concurring opinion on the Supreme Court’s decision on the Reproductive Health Law. The good justice acknowledged what has been experienced by countries whose governments are at the forefront of promoting contraceptive culture, as the RH Law may unwittingly do in our country, albeit with safeguards spelled out by the Court in its main decision penned by Justice Jose Mendoza. Justice Brion said that “[f]actoring in contraceptives and birth control may immeasurably hasten… changes for the worse.” He brought out a concern that was ingeniously captured by the cartoon when he said that “[c]ontraceptives and birth control devices, distributed even among the young because of lack of stringent control, can lead to a generation of young Filipinos uncaring about the morality of instant sex and irresponsible in their view about pregnancies.” I have taken a photo of the cartoon to keep a record of what may in the future prove to be a prophecy unconsciously made by the good justice.
—OLIVER M. TUAZON,
UST Faculty of Civil Law,
omtuazon.law@gmail.com