Voices of discord on HB 4110

By Noralyn Mustafa




THE USUAL thing is to say that the bishops of the Catholic Church are interfering in matters that are outside their human experience. But a mammoth rally held in Cagayan de Oro City last April 27 against House Bill 4110, the proposed "Reproductive Health Care Act," exposes that view as an untruth. In fact, the rally was organized by lay people at the helm, representing a broad assortment of professions, social classes and organizational colors. Very few priests came to the rally, it being a Sunday. But just the week before that, when the rally was being conceptualized, the archbishop and the clergy of the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro were, in fact, away in Cebu City for their annual presbyterial retreat.

The rally participants, which media people had estimated to have reached about 5,000 in number, were an interesting mix. There were mostly rural folks, many of whom were farmers and fisherfolk. A large group of hinterland people came in three borrowed open bed trucks. These were not the voices of the moneyed, well-heeled elite. This was the hoi polloi. But from the more urban centers came as well a cross-section of various representations of office workers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, retired government workers, youth, Chinays and Chinoys, NGO people of various spectra and what have you.

None of the speakers came from the clergy. As the rally organizers saw it fit, there are other voices that do not dissonate with HB 4110, and these are the voices that the media do not easily pick up. These voices embody views that the bill's pros, including many from the media, do not endow with much relevance. A continuing paradox of Filipino culture is sidelining the voices from the interstices. In fact, the rally's discourses revealed the reality of an interplay of power and money behind HB 4110.

Among the speakers was Rep. Constantino G. Jaraula, of the lone district of Cagayan de Oro, who is senior deputy minority floor leader of the House, and who narrated his own spontaneous experiences about the bill. The first time he read it, he found the bill "very convincing and well-written." What gave him further impetus to like the bill, he recounted, were two provisions that specifically say abortion will not be allowed once it was enacted.

Reading further into the bill, however, Jaraula came to the conclusion that the bill abrogates the rights of parents to their children. But his own keen research into the bill's production reveals an interesting mise en scene of politics and power play. Jaraula reveals that powerful advocacies from the US AID, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other multinationals that provide consultancy and research to 22 government agencies under the acronym Agile, are some of the behind-the-scenes players of the bill. "House Bill 4110 was produced by these advocacies, adapted to the language of the Philippine Congress."

There are 219 members of the House. For many, research is not a forte. Compounding that is the built-in problem of having many committees. Congressmen have to shuffle between many committee meetings. Upon receipt of a bill, there is no longer much time left to read the fine print. But by simply affixing one's signature to a bill, one becomes a co-author. Jaraula forcefully defines his position on HB 4110: "I will never sign that bill!"

In fact, many congressmen have already withdrawn their signatures. Starting with just 14, the signatories grew to 50, then dwindled to 40. Among those who withdrew, in fact, was Rep. Antonio P. Yapha Jr. of the third district of Cebu province. Nothing earth-stirring in that, except for the fact that Yapha is the chair of the House's health committee!

Too often, taxpayers do not know who stands to gain and profit from bills passed in Congress. What they do not know is that there is a strong lobby by the drug and contraceptive industry that stands to lose in the Philippines a $2 million market for their products due to the US AID's reduction of its contraceptive donation from $5 million to $3 million annually. By 2004, in fact, the US AID will phase out its $5-million contraceptive donation totally. Abroad, there is an industry fear that a 1985 US law, the Kemp-Kasten Amendment that banned US aid for financing or supporting abortions abroad could freeze money for all agencies with "reproductive health programs" like Unicef, WHO, UNDP and World Bank.

Another rally speaker, Dr. Rene Josef Bullecer of Cebu, represents a voice that too often is ignored by the bill's proponents. Contraceptives and artificial family planning methods promoted by HB 4110 puts women at risk to cardiovascular diseases and cancer. The International Agency on Cancer has listed the pill as a carcinogen. The 1997 World Conference on Breast Cancer cited prolonged use of the pill as one of the risk factors of breast cancer.

Many rally participants were, in fact, doctors and medical practitioners. One pediatric cardiologist in the audience told me that she has documented cases of congenital heart diseases among infants whose mothers had previous histories of contraceptive use. In fact, this data is not localized but is confirmed by studies done in other countries.

The rehashed line is to say that the Catholic Church is the cause of overpopulation. This monocausal illogic is definitely not empirical and too often cites the already archaic Malthusian reasoning. There are progressive women legislators behind HB 4110. Has it ever occurred to them that the country's poverty can be better explained by social inequality, graft and corruption and inept governance? Shout that out in the streets.

Voices of discords are voices from people who are imbued with, what is universally known as, human dignity.