MANILA, Philippines?Pro-Charter change representatives in Congress have a new formidable opponent to reckon with: The backers of the stalled reproductive health bill in the House.

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman will lead more than 130 lawmakers in holding the Cha-cha and text tax measures hostage until the House of Representatives tackles the reproductive health bill which, he pointed out, had been languishing in Congress for over a decade.

The reproductive health bill, which requires the government to promote natural and artificial birth control methods, is not on Speaker Prospero Nograles?s list of priority measures to be taken up in the last nine session days of Congress.

But a bill providing for a constitutional convention (Con-con) to amend the Constitution is, and this has raised once again the bogey of a return to power by President Macapagal-Arroyo who is running for representative of the second district of Pampanga in the May elections.

Resumption

Congress will resume its session on Jan. 18 and adjourn in the first week of February to give way to the election campaign period.

If the Con-con measure and other major bills on the House agenda are taken up on the floor, Lagman said he would either question the quorum or keep up an interpellation of its sponsor to prevent the measure from being put to a vote.

?If they do not consider [the RH bill] and vote for it, no Con-con or tax measure will be passed ? if it has no chance, then the other measures will have no chance. All of us will just have no chance,? he told reporters at the Serye news forum on Thursday.

?I am calling on all RH coauthors to make a daily quorum watch and to marshal all interpellation on the Con-con bill as well as new tax development measures,? Lagman told the forum.

But he said that even if the reproductive health bill were taken up, it did not mean that he would automatically support the Charter change measure.

He stressed that it was time to act on the reproductive health bill which had been discussed extensively in several congresses.

Informed choice

He pointed out that majority of Filipinos supported the measure, as shown by surveys.

He said the bill would give couples an informed choice when it came to planning their families, and address the country?s rapidly growing population that has strained resources, among other benefits.