MANILA, Philippines—A women’s party-list group yesterday urged Filipino boxing champion Manny Pacquiao to support pending bills on genuine agrarian reform, national industrialization, and the P125 wage increase for workers as alternatives to the controversial reproductive health (RH) bill which the Sarangani representative is opposing.
Gabriela Women’s party-list Representative Emmie de Jesus said she was struck by Pacquaio’s arguments in opposing the RH bill during his interpellation of Albay Representative Edcel Lagman, the bill’s main sponsor, in the House last week. Pacquiao had said that the RH bill was “not a solution” to poverty.
“We welcome Representative Pacquiao’s concern for the poor who comprise the majority of Gabriela’s constituents. If we can agree to disagree on the RH bill, we still call on Representative Pacquiao to work with us on the promotion of (these other) bills,” De Jesus said.
Gabriela co-authored House Bill 374 or An Act Institutionalizing Genuine Agrarian Reform in the Country and Creating the Mechanism for its Implementation and for Other Purposes. It was filed by Anakwapis party-list Representative Rafael V. Mariano, who also filed a bill calling for a P125 wage increase. The bills are pending in committee.
“We therefore call on Representative Pacquiao to study well these particular bills as they definitely bring to Congress the voices and demands of our poor constituents,” De Jesus said.
He knows what he’s doing
Representative Pacquiao’s interest and support for them, could give impetus to their movement in the legislative mill,” she stressed.
Bayan Muna party-list Representative Neri Javier Colmenares, an RH bill supporter, said that Pacquaio should not be faulted for promoting the interest of the Catholic Church by opposing the RH bill.
“I think Representative Pacquaio knows what he’s doing and we should respect his views on this issue. I see no problem there,” Colmenares said.
He said he believed that the meeting between Pacquiao and President Benigno Aquino III in Malacañang where the two dicussed important issues such as the RH bill should be viewed in the proper context.
“I don’t think he was able to convince the President and I don’t the President was able to convince him. So tabla lang sila (they’re even),” he said.
On the other hand, prominent lawyer Romulo Macalintal said that Jinky Pacquiao’s admission that she used to take contraceptives should not be taken against her husband on the RH issue.
“Jinkee should be appreciated and emulated for making the admission and that as a true Christian she stopped using the pills after learning of its bad effects and that it’s against the teachings of the Church,” Macalintal said.
Gays slam Dionisia
Meanwhile, gay and transgender rights activists yesterday said they were hurt by the remarks of Dionisia Pacquiao, the mother of the boxing champion and Pacquiao himself, scoring gay men for taking birth control pills to make their breasts larger.
Goya Candelario, Progressive Organization of Gays (ProGay Philippines) spokesperson, said Mrs. Pacquiao made the offending remarks in her spat with Sen. Miriam Santiago over the controversial RH bill.
“With all due respect, we want Mommy Dionisia to know that we are deeply offended and scared that her words can again revive the disease model of homosexuality and transexuality in Philippine society,” Candelario said in a statement.
Pacquiao was supposed to have said: “Tingnan mo, mga bakla, kaiinom ng pills, hindi na bagay inumin ng mga bakla kasi lalake sila. Ginagawa sila ng Diyos na lalake. Umiinom talaga sila ng pills para magsilaki ang dede. Bawal ’yan! (Look at gays who keep on taking pills. It’s not good for gays to take them because they’re men. God made them men (but) they take pills to make their breasts bigger. That’s not allowed).”
Candelario said it was true that many low-income transgenders resort to taking over-the-counter female hormones in contraceptive pills in order to “enhance their femininity.”