RH is not about health

NO, the Reproductive Health Bill is not about health. It is about population deceleration, so that if there is less population there will be less mouth to feed and therefore, or so the equation goes, better economy. It is about eugenics, so that in order to ascertain their happy survival the superior races, who are the wealthier, are financing the deterioration of the lower and poorer ones.

It is about profit and all the money, including corruption, that goes with it, so that multinational pharmaceutical corporations that produce contraceptive products—such as condom, intrauterine device, pills the likes of RU-486 and Mifiprex that are euphemistically known as morning after pills—rake in billions of dollars once the government and millions of users start patronizing them.

It is about a government trying its best to legislate couples’ right to choose and penalizing those who violate this law, granting it becomes one, with one to six months imprisonment or a fine of ten to fifty thousand pesos or both.

It is all about something that it is not about. And yet it is seemingly getting the upper hand in the cold war of perceptions. Roberto Tiglao of Malacañang memory, in his recent column at the Philippine Daily Inquirer, dared a strong opinion that the threat of Church people to launch civil disobedience once this administration stubbornly push for the approval of the RH bill will not materialize because majority of the populace are for it. There had been social surveys, too, the other year telling the same thing, although questioned by pro-life groups for including wholesale questionnaires that were intrinsically deceptive.

Believe it or not, the position of the Catholic Church is the only one that is true and free of other agenda. And yet there are less people, at least perception-wise, that seem to buy it. The reason is, the Church does not explain it well. Coming out with threats, say, civil disobedience—or even the misattributed excommunication—does not serve well. Instead of catechizing or clarifying the issues it has become counterproductive by provoking instead the “Damaso” rallying point of the RH supporters.

The agenda surrounding the RH bill is gargantuan and gargantuan too are the logistics and tactics that have been heaped for its lobby in congress and in people’s minds through the media. Admittedly, the church, aside from its solid moral and theological foundations, is still groping for ways to communicate to the public the truth that, for instance, contraception is immoral and destructive and never will be the solution to the country’s worsening poverty.