Aquino won’t pressure Congress allies on RH bill

Lawmakers attend a session at the House of Representatives Monday, opting to end debate on the controversial Reproductive Health Bill. AP FILE PHOTO

CEBU CITY, Philippines–President Aquino said he would not pressure his allies in Congress to vote in favor of the Reproductive Health bill.

The President, who was in Cebu on Friday to attend the National Thanksgiving Mass for St. Pedro Calungsod, confirmed that he would meet with lawmakers allied with him on Monday.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte had asked that the President meet with his allies in Congress to push for the approval of the bill, which has drawn stiff opposition from the Catholic Church.

But the President said he would respect the personal stand of the lawmakers.

“I am a pro Responsible Parenthood but this is a matter of conscience. All of us have a value system and belief system and we should follow what our conscience dictates,” the President told a press conference in Mandaue City, where he met with his allies from Cebu.

Aquino said the leadership of the ruling Liberal Party would not pressure its members to vote in favor of the RH bill.

He maintained that the LP lawmakers should be the ones to decide, adding that he would only suggest to them to make the decision.

Some RH bill advocates have urged the President to push the bill aggressively like what he had done with the sin tax bill, which has been certified as urgent.

The President, however, refused to say if he would certify the RH bill as urgent.

He said he would first determine if there would be a need to certify the RH bill as urgent.

As this developed, the migrants group Migrante-Middle East on Friday slammed Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile over the latter’s apparent justification for his anti-RH bill stance.

“Sen. Enrile’s justification of his anti-RH stand is misplaced and put in an improper context,” said Migrante Middle-East coordinator John Monterona.

At the Kapihan sa Senado press forum on Thursday, Enrile was quoted as saying: “Our biggest export are the overseas Filipino workers. That’s export. That’s why I am against the RH bill because of that. What will improve our economy is our excess population whom we have tolerated to accept jobs abroad that others don’t want to handle. We have to accept that. Korea started that way.”

Monterona said that while Enrile was right in his observation that OFWs are the Philippines’ biggest export, he said the Senate President failed to recognize the root causes of the forced migration phenomenon.

“To say that the PH economy will improve mainly due to intensified government labor export program and abundant human resources for export is not true at all just because it’s keeping the Philippine economy afloat,” Monterona stressed.

Monterona said that no countries that also send migrant workers abroad could claim that they gained economic development through mere reliance on migrants’ remittances although they help pump prime the local economy due to massive local consumption. (With a report from Tina G. Santos)