Iloilo Representative Janette Garin. Photo from congress.gov.ph
MANILA, Philippines — The controversial Reproductive Health Bill should not be sent back to committee level hearings because doing so would kill it, one of its proponents said on Tuesday.
Iloilo Representative Janette Garin said that the move to refer the revised version of House Bill 4244 back to committee level talks being insisted by Deputy Speaker Pablo Garcia, Batangas Representative Hermilando Mandanas and Cagayan de Oro Representative Rufus Rodriguez would be impossible.
The three anti-RH lawmakers are working to return the revised version to committee level deliberations because it was not the one sponsored in the plenary.
“It is synonymous to killing the bill. They are just twisting legalities and rules with the main objective of killing the bill. Any legislator understands that,” she said.
Garin and other proponents of HB 4244 are hoping that the amendments they introduced in the new version of the bill would be acceptable to most lawmakers so that it can finally be voted on.
There are ongoing talks between members of the House leadership and staunch critics of the RH Bill to iron out issues on how they should handle the proposed measure’s new version.
Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. has earlier urged fellow lawmakers to allow the RH Bill to finally be put to a vote as the new version was crafted as a compromise with those opposing it.
The RH Bill’s principal author Albay Representative Edcel Lagman has earlier denied that the new version was watered-down.