SC ruling stirs more RH debate

Advocates of the Reproductive Health Law waited for more than a day for the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of the RH law, and as the court sat en banc at its summer courthouse in Baguio on Tuesday (April 8), actress Giselle Toengi found time to shoot a selfie with the crowd. This was moments before the court decided that the law was constitutional, and the purple crowd went wild. Some broke into tears. PHOTO BY EV ESPIRITU/ INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines—The Supreme Court has lifted the status quo ante (SQA) order it issued last July on the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health (RH) law but lawyers are still debating whether or not the law can be immediately implemented.

Some lawyers privy to Tuesday’s ruling that declared the RH law “not unconstitutional” said the lifting of the SQA meant the law could be deemed in force, save for eight provisions that the high court struck down.

But lawyer Romulo Macalintal disagreed, saying the government cannot yet implement the high court decision because the parties have yet to receive their respective copies of the ruling and the decision, including the lifting of the SQA order, could still be the subject of a motion for reconsideration by the petitioners. Under the Rules of Court, petitioners have 15 days from their receipt of the decision to file a motion for reconsideration.

Asked last Tuesday whether the SQA order against the RH law has been lifted with the high court decision, Te had told reporters to just await for the text of the decision.

The full text of the decision is expected to be released by the high court by Thursday.

Macalintal said the question now was whether both the pro- and anti-RH advocates would accept the high court decision or file motions for reconsideration.

The RH law aims to make modern contraceptives available to couples and mandate sex education in schools.

In response to challenges to the RH law, the high court first stopped the implementation of the law on March 18, 2013, by issuing a status quo ante order for four months. It later extended the SQA indefinitely. After hearing arguments from pro and anti petitioners, the final decision declaring the law “not unconstitutional” came on Tuesday during the court’s summer session in the mountain city of Baguio.

The Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines led the campaign against the RH law, stressing Catholic teachings against the use of artificial contraceptives.

Reacting to the decision, an official of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), which led the anti-RH campaign, said on Wednesday the Church remained hopeful that the RH law may yet be repealed in the future.

“Our prayer is that in the next Congress in 2016, it will be repealed,” Fr. Melvin Castro, executive secretary of the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Family and Life, told reporters in an interview over the phone.

In a statement on Wednesday, Human Life International (HLI), a US-based Roman Catholic prolife organization, expressed sadness and disappointment over the SC ruling, saying the “real losers in the decision were not the prolife groups or the Church but the Filipino people and its life-loving culture.”