RH Bill in near demise

MANILA, February 4, 2010—THE DEBATE on the Reproductive Health Bill is by no means over. But at the end of the 14th Congress, the proposal remained stuck in the period of interpellation despite being given a priority status. With this, Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal was optimistic that the current scenario implies the defeat of House Bill 5043.

During the last three working days before the House adjourned for the campaign period, House Speaker Prospero Nograles cited that lack of quorum was the reason that the bill got jammed.

In an earlier report, Nograles instructed Majority Leader Arthur Defensor to “simplify the plenary debates to avoid personal divisive emotional matters.” In this regard, two panels of five members from each side were supposed to speak and comment on the different aspects of the bill. This was done to allegedly hasten the process instead of having a long list of lawmakers interpellating the sponsors of the said bill. However, since series of plenary debates did not suffice to be able to put it to a vote, reports indicated that the Catholic church believes that the turn of events was symbolic of the way the RH Bill was buried.

The reproductive health bill, now with 132 co-authors and 20 others who pledged support, seeks to step up the use of both artificial and natural means of family planning as one of the measures to curb the ballooning population, the rising maternal deaths and empower couples in deciding the size of family they want.