Quiet signing into law of RH bill could pave way for reconciliation

Albay Representative Edcel Lagman. RYAN LEAGOGO/INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines—The way by which President Benigno Aquino III signed the divisive Reproductive Health measure was meant to lessen conflict with the Catholic Church and to “start the reconciliation process,” the bill’s main proponent at the House of Representatives said on Saturday.

Albay Representative Edcel Lagman, in a statement sent to reporters, said that the President’s act of signing the reconciled version of the bill has been “unlike the rage and controversy which attended the congressional debates and approval of the measure.”

“The bill was signed as Republic Act No. 10354 in the privacy of the President’s study room without the anticipated ceremony in order not to exacerbate the conflict with some Catholic bishops and ensure the reconciliation process to ensure widespread support in the implementation of the RH law,” he said.

After 13 years of languishing in both chambers of Congress, the “arduous crusade for the enactment of a comprehensive and nationwide reproductive health law is over… the RH Bill is finally delivered, signed and sealed,” Lagman added.

He said that the enrolled bill signed by Aquino on December 21, a day after Congress ratified its bicameral report on the measure, was an authentic copy of the one signed by Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, the Secretary General of the House of Representatives and the Secretary of the Senate.

RA 10354 will provide “universal access to medically-safe, non-abortifacient, effective, legal, affordable, and quality reproductive health care services, methods, devices, supplies which do not prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum as determined by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and relevant information and education thereon according to the priority needs of women, children and other underprivileged sectors, giving preferential access to those identified through the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) and other government measures of identifying marginalization, who shall be voluntary beneficiaries of reproductive health care, services and supplies for free.”

It allows couples and individuals with the right to have their desired number of children “with due consideration to the health, particularly of women, and the resources available and affordable to them and in accordance with existing laws, public morals and their religious convictions.” It adds that “no one shall be deprived, for economic reasons, of the rights to have children.”

And although the law views abortion as illegal, it also mandates the state to provide women suffering from pregnancy and post-abortive complications with medical treatment and counseling “in a humane, nonjudgmental and compassionate manner.”

RA 10354 will also provide “age- and development-appropriate reproductive health education” through a curriculum to be crafted by the Department of Education, a move which Lagman believes would benefit some 7.5 million adolescents in its initial implementation. He also hopes that the curriculum would be adopted by private schools.