MANILA, Philippines - The principal author of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill asked President Aquino yesterday to certify the bill as urgent to expedite its approval.
Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said Aquino’s certification would send a strong message to members of the House of Representatives that he has not changed his support for the bill.
With Aquino’s certification, the House can approve the bill on second and third-final reading next week, he added.
Earlier, other lawmakers had also asked Aquino for a certification but their appeals have so far fallen on deaf ears.
It was the sin tax reform bill that Aquino has declared as urgent. Such declaration hastened the tax measure’s approval by the Senate.
Even without presidential certification, Malacañang officials said senators and House members should not leave the RH bill hanging.
They have to take a vote one way or the other, the officials said.
However, they said the President is not losing hope that the two chambers would approve the bill.
Last Monday, after mustering a quorum of 174, the House tackled the RH bill again for the first time in nearly four months.
Taking advantage of the quorum, Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II called the bill for amendments, something he has not been able to do since Aug. 6 due to maneuvers employed by anti-RH lawmakers, who have vowed to use every trick in the book to derail the measure.
Gonzales also introduced the first major amendment: substituting a less contentious compromise version he and Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. had authored for Lagman’s original proposal.
The House overwhelmingly approved the amendment by substitution. It is now the compromise version that is on deck.
But as soon as such approval was made, and despite the presence of a quorum, pro-RH Rep. Rodante Marcoleta of the party-list group Alagad inexplicably presented a motion for adjournment.
Seizing an opportunity to stop the bill from further moving forward, the presiding officer, anti-RH Deputy Speaker Jesus Crispin Remulla of Cavite, quickly declared the session adjourned.
On Tuesday, the House failed to continue tackling the bill for failing again to muster a quorum.
Lagman said he does not expect a sufficient number of his colleagues to attend the session yesterday for the continuation of the period of amendments.
“We hope to have enough attendance on Monday. We expect only a few more individual amendments since the compromise version addresses many of the objections of those opposed to the original bill,” he said.
He said he was optimistic that the House could pass the measure before the Christmas break next month.
“We have been fighting for the proposed RH law for 13 years. This is the first time that it reached this point, where only a little more sacrifice on the part of our colleagues could get it approved,” he said.
Sotto: DOH best proof vs RH
Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III said the best argument against the RH bill is the Department of Health (DOH) itself.
The DOH would have P21 billion for RH programs in 2013, he added.
Sotto, one of two staunch anti-RH bill senators, said he is not against giving the necessary RH services to women, especially the poor.
He has not objected to the P21-billion appropriation spread out in the DOH’s proposed P51-billion budget for 2013, he added.
During the plenary debate on the DOH’s proposed budget the other night, Sotto gave a breakdown of the items in the budget that relate to maternal health and reproductive health services.
Based on Sotto’s research on the proposed budget of the DOH, he cited the following items as RH-related:
Health facilities enhancement program: P13.558 million; health, family planning operations and infrastructure programs: P268.9 million;
Family health and responsible parenting: P2.539 billion; grants, subsidies and contributions in support of population programs of the Commission on Population: P127.5 million;
Tetanus vaccine for pregnant women: P29.25 million; Women’s health and safe motherhood project: P269.86 million; and
Health human resource development: P2.95 billion.
Sotto said: “Given that these items I have mentioned, which are all related to the provisions in the RH bill, it seems that the RH bill is already being implemented by the DOH.
“The best argument against the RH bill is the Department of Health, because they are already doing this (and) have the budget for it. But this is an important undertaking that they are doing to achieve their projections and especially to lessen the problem or uplift the maternal health care and family health.”
Sotto said the provisions in the RH bill need not be mandated through a law.
“But if we insert controversial provisions, mandate these, approve this as a law, this runs counter to the religion and beliefs of some people.”
A law should not provide penalties for failure to distribute contraceptives, Sotto said.
The RH bill is currently in the period of amendments in the Senate and pending approval on second reading. (From Philstar.com)