‘Church making me like a terrorist’

IN BAGUIO City, Ifugao Representative Teodoro Baguilat Jr. called on Cordillera employees, elders and members of civil society to persuade their lawmakers to vote for House Bill No. 4244 (or the consolidated Responsible Parenting and Reproductive Health Bill), which was the subject of plenary debates this week.

“It has been risky for politicians like myself to come out and openly advocate RH because of the perception that they would lose their Catholic base,” Baguilat said yesterday at the First Cordillera Reproductive Health Summit.

The summit, which was organized by the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD), defined the RH advocacy as a population management program.

Baguilat said he now had reservations about attending Masses in the Cordillera “because the Church there has made me out as a terrorist” for supporting the RH bill.

But Cordillera officials must realize that the carrying capacity of fragile mountains that serve as Luzon’s watershed will not hold a population that is growing at a rate of 1.5 percent annually, he said.

Ifugao, home of the rice terraces, is one of the few provinces to enact its own RH code, Baguilat said.

He said this was because its residents had realized that the survival of future generations lies in the proper management of its population and resources.

The Cordillera region has a population of 1,520,743—the smallest in the country. But that number will double by 2053 unless communities begin to manage their population growth, according to Ma. Aurora Quiray, Commission on Population director in the Cordillera.

By his lonesome

Baguilat said he was the only lawmaker from the Cordillera openly backing the RH bill.

He said: “I spoke to [Benguet Representative Ronald Cosalan] and he told me, ‘I’m still studying the bill.’ I asked [a female official of Apayao] and she said she had no problem with RH except that it would be tough to discuss its implications with her father, [an influential political leader]. I also spoke to [Baguio Representative Bernardo Vergara] and he said, ‘I support it but that’s a secret.’”

According to the PLCPD, only 40 percent of the House of Representatives openly support HB 4244, 20 percent are neutral and 39 percent have sided with the Catholic Church.

The Senate version of the RH bill is backed by 12 senators, per the latest PLCPD tally.

Baguilat said that instead of information that would explain the RH bill, the public had been provided spectacles like the newspaper headline “Pacman KO’d by Lagman” to describe the May 18 “debate” between Sarangani Representative Manny Pacquiao and Albay Representative Edcel Lagman on the bill.

Baguio Vice Mayor Daniel Fariñas said the public needed to make an informed choice about an RH program without being swamped with false data.