MANILA, Philippines—Serving notice to lawmakers ahead of plenary debates over the controversial reproductive health bill, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Monday reaffirmed her support for natural family planning over artificial methods such as condoms and pills.
In her eighth State of the Nation Address (SONA), the President said her administration’s adherence to natural methods had actually trimmed the country’s population growth rate.
“By promoting natural planning and female education, we have curbed population growth to 2.04 percent during our administration, down from the 2.36 in the 1990s, when artificial birth control was pushed,” Ms Arroyo said halfway through her hour-long SONA before a joint session of the 14th Congress.
“Informed choice should mean letting more couples, who are mostly Catholics, know about natural family planning,” said Ms Arroyo, a Catholic mother of three.
By recalling the 1990s, Ms Arroyo was apparently referring to the policy maintained by then President Fidel Ramos, a Protestant, which actively promoted both natural and artificial birth control methods.
Three babies are born every minute in the Philippines and experts have said the country needs to slow population growth if it wants to achieve self-sufficiency in rice. Ms Arroyo, who relies on powerful Catholic bishops for support, dismissed that argument.
“Rice production since 2000 increased an average of 4.07 percent a year, twice the population growth rate,” she said.
Pending approval on second reading at the House of Representatives, the reproductive health (RH) bill seeks to make available to couples a choice on family planning methods. The measure had been calendared for floor debates after it was approved at the committee level in May.
On Friday, Catholic bishops gathered some 12,000 faithful and spearheaded a rally denouncing the RH bill on the University of Santo Tomas campus in Manila.
Lagman’s reaction
Reached for comment Monday, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, chief proponent of the RH bill, said the President should still respect the decision Filipino couples make on which family planning method to use.
“It all boils down to freedom of choice,” Lagman told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net). “Her endorsement (of natural family planning) is her choice and we respect that. But couples should also make their own choice in the same manner that the President has made hers.”
Lagman cited a study showing 35.9 percent of Filipinos embracing modern and artificial birth control methods and only 14.9 percent saying they would stick to natural methods.
“So if you take (the President’s statement) in the context of data,” Lagman said, “we should be able to promote both methods and let couples and women decide on what to do.”
Far from applauding Ms Arroyo, however, a ranking Catholic prelate said her latest pronouncement stoking the population debate seemed “too good to be true.”
“I think she’s just trying to earn political points from the CBCP [Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines],” said Pangasinan Archbishop Oscar Cruz.
“She’s politicizing the issue when it’s a moral one,” Cruz added.
He also doubted the President’s report on the country’s slowing population growth, citing figures from the National Statistics Office showing that Filipinos have already numbered almost 90 million as of last year. “I don’t know what to believe,” the archbishop said.
Fr. Melvin Castro, executive secretary of the CBCP-Commission on Family and Life, said he would have to “wait and see” if Malacańang was really sincere in its declared support for Church-sanctioned natural family planning methods. With reports from Kristine Alave and Reuters
