US donor hits Arroyo policy on population
By Christian V. Esguerra, Nestor P. Burgos Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:46:00 07/25/2008
MANILA, Philippines—A top United States-based benefactor of population management programs worldwide has criticized President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for backing the Catholic Church’s hard-line position on reproductive health (RH) issues.
Ms Arroyo is backing the Church’s position against artificial contraception despite efforts by Congress to legislate a population management policy.
The Church and like-minded groups are to hold a prayer rally on Friday at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in Manila to help pressure lawmakers into abandoning the proposed Reproductive Health and Population Development Act, which has passed the committee level in the House of Representatives.
On Thursday, thousands of people led by Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), took to the streets in Iloilo City to protest the RH bill.
“Under the current administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the ... government has refused to buy contraceptives, worsening the shortage,” according to the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, which funded at least three population management projects in the Philippines last year.
Competing priorities
The statement was made—and highlighted as a blurb—in the foundation’s “2007 Report from the International Grantmaking Review,” which discusses the progress of Packard-funded programs in Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines. (To read the report, log on to the foundation’s website www.packard.org.)
The foundation assailed the Church, saying its “fervent opposition to contraception continues to hamper service delivery and policy implementation” in the Philippines.
It also said the Arroyo administration’s “many competing priorities,” along with “strong political opposition,” posed a challenge to Packard-funded efforts to address RH issues.
But it added that “while the political environment remains challenging and both population growth and unmet need for family planning remain high, future progress may be possible.”
$750,000 in grants
According to its website, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation turned over last year at least $750,000 for the population management programs of local grantees.
The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines was awarded $300,000 for a project “to improve access to family planning and reproductive health services in the workplace through public and private partnerships.” The grant was spread over 36 months.
The College of Social Science and Philosophy of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, got $350,000 “to establish a population leadership program for leaders and advocates who will have a direct impact on family planning and reproductive health policies and programs.”
The Women’s Health Care Foundation was granted $100,000 “for an integrated family planning and HIV-prevention program for commercial sex workers.”
Said the report: “The foundation and its grantees in the Philippines had a challenging but urgent mission: To build momentum for a major change in attitudes while avoiding a political backlash.
“While other Asian nations make steady progress in curbing high population growth rates, the Philippines lags behind. The country’s total fertility rate of 3.58 is almost one child more than the desired family size, and contraceptive prevalence hovers below 50 percent.”
Curiously, the report pegged the Philippines’ population growth rate at only 1.8 percent, which is way below the 2.36 percent rate cited by pro-choice advocates to help justify a population management measure.
Bells to ring 6 p.m.
The bells of all the churches in Manila will ring at 6 p.m. Friday to herald the prayer rally at UST to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s “Humanae Vitae,” or the Encyclical on the Regulation of Birth.
“This will express the Catholics’ firm belief in life and their commitment to stand up for life,” Manila Auxiliary Bishop Bernardino Cortez said in a circular.
Cortez enjoined the faithful to join the prayer rally, which was organized by the CBCP’s Commission on Family and Life (CFL).
The Archdiocese of Manila said it expected thousands to attend the prayer rally, including contingents from El Shaddai led by Bro. Mike Velarde, the contending factions of Couples for Christ, the Christian Family Movement, Ligaya ng Panginoon and other organizations, as well as groups from nearby provinces.
Fr. Melvin Castro, the CFL executive secretary, said the prayer rally would serve as an opportunity for the Church to show its “militant” stance against the RH bill pending in the House.
Lay couples and Church experts are to testify on the message of Humanae Vitae, the archdiocese said.
A concelebrated Mass is scheduled, with Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, Archbishop Edward Joseph Adams, the Apostolic Nuncio, and Archbishop Paciano Aniceto of San Fernando, Pampanga, delivering messages to the faithful.
Defense of family
At the protest rally in Iloilo City, students of Church-run schools, parishioners of Iloilo and Guimaras, priests and nuns, and members of lay groups carried streamers denouncing the RH bill as “anti-life” and against religious teachings.
The protesters massed at three points at around 1 p.m. before converging on the Iloilo Freedom Grandstand where a program preceded a Mass officiated by Archbishop Lagdameo and other clergymen.
The activity, timed to mark the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, is “a rally for the defense of the family and life against ongoing attacks against them through a legislative agenda,” Lagdameo said in a circular.
In his homily, Lagdameo reiterated the Church’s stand: “We in the Catholic Church ... advocate only natural family planning methods as the only morally acceptable way of practicing responsible parenthood.”
He said the Church was not forbidding the advocacy of an increase or decrease in population provided that couples’ religious beliefs would be respected.
‘Deception’
But Lagdameo said the family as an institution was being threatened by the RH bill.
“The subtle attacks on family and conjugal morality through legislation that promotes artificial methods of birth control are couched in attractive but deceptive terminologies like reproductive health care, population management, anti-discrimination of women and children, reproductive rights and patients’ rights,” he said.
Lagdameo also questioned government statistics on the country’s population growth rate (PGR).
Quoting Dr. Joseph Chamie of the United Nations’ Population Division, Lagdameo said: “The problem is not about population explosion but population implosion.”
He added: “While our government policymakers claim that our growth rate is 2.36 percent, both the [US Agency for International Development] and the UN have arrived at a much lower PGR. In fact, as of December 2004, the National Statistics Office had projected a [PGR] of 1.99 percent. The Philippines is slowly joining the countries with a very low growth rate.”
Lagdameo also said poverty was caused by misuse of public funds.
“If all the money that goes to graft and corruption in the government ... is spent for our increasingly poor population, we will have indeed both population and true progress, a population that is the resource and object of development,” he said.
‘Distortion’
On the phone with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin said that while the Church had a right to hold a prayer rally, it should “stop the distortion of facts.”
Garin, a main sponsor of the RH bill, bristled at accusations that the bill was promoting abortion and encouraging “free sex” among teenagers by providing for access to RH services.
“That is a big lie. The Church is abusing its powers by spreading misinformation,” she said, adding that under the bill, the distribution of condoms, for example, would be limited to couples and channeled through health centers.
She also said that while most congressmen were backing the bill, they were being “intimidated” by threats of excommunication.
“I feel bad about accusations that we are promoting abortion or that we are abortionists. That is farthest from the truth. We believe that what we are doing is good for our people,” Garin said.
Signature campaign
She urged those who believed in the necessity of the bill to “come out and speak up, especially the poor and the women who have been denied access to RH services.”
But at a press conference, Dr. Rene Josef Bullecer, country director of Human Life International, said it would gather one million signatures each in the Visayas and Mindanao “to send a clear and strong message that we don’t want the bill.” With a report from Kristine L. Alave
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