“Irresponsible parenthood”

IN Facebook, a cursory comment was lodged at Good Morning CBCP saying in “jejemon,” “wla na…konti na lng ki2tain nla kng konti na lng bi2nyagan.” (No more… they will earn little if those to be baptized are getting fewer). Obviously, the one who commented was referring, if sarcastically, to the efforts of the Catholic Church to oppose the legislation of the Reproductive Health Bill because, once legislated, it will mean lesser population and, therefore, lesser revenues at baptisms.

Clearly, the comment—and there are thousands of them every day in social networks—is meant to spite the church in its honest-to-goodness crusade to save the country from a legislation that will do more harm than good and from a global campaign of population reduction even if the means clashing head-on with morals, religious beliefs and the Philippine Constitution.

Although it is not true that the Church is blocking the Bill because of a long shot reference to reduction of whatever revenues, it is true that the RH Bill is really meant for population deceleration—at all cost. This is the primary and the sole target. All the other provisions are mere riders meant to put icing to the cake that is increasingly becoming palatable to more and more people, sadly, even among other religious circles.

The trite equation that the ballooning population is the cause of poverty has long been debunked, because really the glaring cause of poverty, at least in this country, is population and resource mismanagement as the campaign slogan “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap,” tentatively showed. And this, without even mentioning a bevy of countries in Africa, for instance, with less population but still very poor or, on the other hand, in some Asian countries with burgeoning populace but boasting of economic growth. Surprisingly enough, people are still buying this argument—even the president of this country, although understandably.

The quality of life argument is a derivative from the overpopulation-equals-poverty theory. The RH Bill supporters now finds solace in the responsible parenthood spin as if the Church, in objecting to the RH Bill, is promoting the contrary, that is, “irresponsible parenthood”. Truth to tell, and this may be disputed, it was the Catholic Church that first used and campaigned for responsible parenthood down to the parishes several decades back. At the end of the day, when all the clouds of confusion and deception have settled, the current version of the RH Bill, once approved, is going to be the most irresponsible kind of parenthood this country will ever see.

There seem to be no greater irresponsibility than to cause the wholesale destruction of values of kids from Grave V and above, and those of their parents.