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Church denounces 1B budget for contraceptives
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MANILA, October 6, 2007— The country’s Catholic Church leaders have denounced a government plan to bankroll the use of contraceptives.
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Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman who heads the appropriation committee, said P1 billion will be used to purchase “reproductive health products” to control population growth.
He said it’s high time for the government to take seriously the rising population problem by allotting funds for “population management.”
But CBCP President and Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo was quick to issue a statement denouncing the plan of the legislator.
“…We categorically object to it and instead and instead strongly recommend that the one billion pesos be directly appropriated and/ or added for hunger and poverty alleviation projects, as well as for free education of extremely poor children,” he said.
Culture of death
Lagdameo said the use of contraceptives “are wrong in themselves” because they violate “nature and God’s law.”
“It is not just a matter of being conservative, but also of being morally right,” he said.
The Church’s alternative to contraception, natural family planning (NFP), was also given emphasis again by Lagdameo as the only right way of practicing responsible parenthood.
The CBCP head clarified the Church is not against population control if only the sanctity of human life is valued.
He called on the government to respect the freewill of the couple to exercise sexual and family morality according to their religious conviction.
“Since the Church objects to the use of artificial contraception, the church likewise objects to their dissemination, creating thereby a contraceptive mentality towards a culture of death,” said Lagdameo.
Nothing but money
Another Church leader has gone far as to saying that it’s all about the money why some lawmakers have been pushing for “anti-life” programs.
“There is money behind this but I don’t know where it is coming from,” said San Fernando Archbishop Paciano Aniceto.
Aniceto, who chairs the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Family and Life, said contraceptive mentality is not the way to promote authentic development for the people.
“It should come out from a real serious economic management and proper economic planning of our country,” he said.
Lagman said he will appropriate the P1-billion budget for population control at the start of the plenary discussions on the proposed P1.227-trillion 2008 national budget.
Blame not the population
The bishops also maintained the Church’s argument that there is no direct correlation between population and poverty.
Aniceto said we are poor not because we are many, but because of misgovernance and corruption in our country.
“It is an old exploded myth that the population is the culprit of our poverty,” he said.
Lagdameo also contested the claim that population in the country has steadily been rising, citing studies conducted by the United Nations (UN) and the National Statistics Office (NSO).
“It is not true that the Philippines growth rate is 2.36 percent. The UN using the same census date has arrived at a very much lower rate. The NSO has already projected a Philippine population growth rate of 1.99 percent,” he said.
“These notwithstanding, we do not subscribe to the allegations that population must be controlled because it is the main cause of poverty; there are other graver factors. We will not join countries with collapsing population growth rate,” Lagdameo added.
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