Archbishop objects to ‘foreign financiers’ funding artificial contraception

MANILA, May 23, 2009—ARCHBISHOP Paciano Aniceto branded international agencies US-AID, the European Commission, Australia’s Agency for International Development and even Agencia Espańola de Cooperacion Internacional of Spain as “unethical” after replenishing their interest in funding local maternal health and population management programs which include artificial birth control.

The Commission on Family and Life head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said these agencies are also key players in pressuring lawmakers to pass a controversial “reproductive health” bill while linking increased aid to its passage.

“Unmindful of the already sharply decreasing rate of population growth in the Philippines after 39 years of unrelenting and well funded population control programs, still these international birth control groups foist upon our country their agenda for population reduction to a level that courts national peril,” Aniceto said.

Aniceto added that billions of pesos have been earmarked for release in the coming months to be channeled to local government units and NGOs. Yet, the Philippines was listed among 74 countries as “intermediate-level fertility.” The meeting noted that if current trends persisted, those countries were expected to reach below replacement fertility levels.

He lamented that hefty funding which should be spent for authentic maternal, infant and child care, basic hygienic systems and measures are inappropriately allotted for contraceptives and birth control devices.

In defense, foreign funding agencies assert that they are alarmed with the fast growth rate of the Philippine population. The head of the delegation of the European Commission in the Philippines, Ambassador Alistair MacDonald, reportedly has intervened in a contentions legislative debate, pushing Filipino lawmakers to pass the RH bill.

Speaking at a forum sponsored by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to promote the Reproductive Health Care Act of 2008 in Manila recently, MacDonald chided the legislators for failing to pass the bill. He called the “provision of effective and accessible” reproductive health services “a responsibility of the State towards the people of the Philippines.”

Australia-AID and Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional, the global aid agency of Spain’s socialist government also called for passage of the bill at the UNFPA forum. (Roy Lagarde)

Credits:
Cited from an original article by Roy Lagarde for cbcpnews.com dated 05/23/09