Editorial Malaya June 21, 2010 ‘Our officials should keep their piety private. In exchange, the people would let their hypocrisy pass unnoticed.’ THE Catholic hierarchs earlier said they would not accept the invitation of the education department to review the sex education subjects that will be pilot-tested this year. Now, the word is some representatives of the Church would be meeting with educators after all, but this would only be to reiterate its position that sex education is not the business of the schools and should be left exclusively to parents. If that’s the Church’s stand, the education department might as well declare that its officials are prepared to humor the Church representatives but are determined to implement the order come what may. Gloria Arroyo herself issued the order for education officials to dialog with Church representatives. She is exiting on June 30, to be succeeded by Noynoy Aquino who has a more enlightened appreciation of the need to address reprodu...

With enough funds, DOH willing to give out contraceptives Thursday, 25 February 2010 Newsbreak Magazine Health chief Cabral: Some bishops can be ‘vicious,’ but I have a job to do While Catholic bishops were intensifying its campaign against candidates backing the reproductive health bill, their attention was caught by a Cabinet member who gave away condoms at a flower market in Manila on Valentines’ Day. Newly appointed Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral has since been tagged as immoral by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and is being asked to resign. Cabral clarified that the distribution of condoms was not meant to promote artificial birth control methods, but a way to remind the public the need for a “responsible sexual behavior” to combat Human Immunodeficiency Virus or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS), a disease that reached an epidemic level in just a year. In an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel’s “Dateline Philippines” on February 24...

By Bong Austero Manila Standard Today 3 March 2010 If I didn’t have my hands full with other pressing engagements last Monday, I would have been there at the Department of Health compound on Tayuman Street in Manila joining hands with women’s groups, non-government organizations, and people living with HIV/AIDS in support of beleaguered Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral. From what I gathered from friends who were there, the crowd turnout wasn’t bad. Certainly not huge if we are to use El Shaddai or Jesus is Lord standards—but being able to gather close to three hundred live bodies is already a feat given the level of demonizing the cause, and Cabral herself, have been getting from the Catholic Church. Rallying in support of condoms is not exactly something one would usually like to be known for. Also, getting people to rally around and in support of a cabinet secretary of the present dispensation does not sound like a wise move. But people did show up—and I am glad that they did. Abou...

One of our letter writers asked if the Vatican pressured Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, President of the Ateneo, into writing a memorandum to the university reminding us that the Catholic line is anti-Reproductive Health? And that heads — presumably that of the faculty — will roll? I am sure no heads will roll, since Ateneo — like all universities, I presume — value academic freedom and freedom of expression. I do not really know if the Vatican did that, and why would they? Based on news reports, what I know is that Archbishop Angel Lagdameo of the CBCP wrote to Fr. Nebres asking him why we, the Ateneo professors, wrote a declaration of support for the Reproductive Health bill. And since when last I looked the Jesuits are still Catholics, naturally they would follow the Catholic line of thought. That is just pure and simple obedience, which is one of the three things a priest is sworn to follow, along with celibacy and poverty. Some of of my priest-friends (both Jesuit and non-Jesuit) tell me ...

Of course, I am one of the signatories to this open letter. And I have signified my intention to join public discussions on this bill. Let the debates begin! *** Editorial Manila Standard Today A heavy-handed attempt by the bishops to silence dissent on the reproductive health bill among thinking Catholics is backfiring. Yesterday, 55 more faculty members of the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University joined 14 of their colleagues who last week urged the passage of House Bill 5043, which the Church has condemned as “anti-life.” This was probably the exact opposite effect that the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines hoped to achieve when its president, Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, wrote Ateneo president Fr. Bienvenido Nebres to lay down the law on the bill. In his letter, Lagdameo asked Nebres to explain why the 14 original faculty members, including some from the Department of Theology, had publicly declared their support for the bill. The pressure from the bishops prompted Ne...

By Christine F. Herrera Manila Standard Today GOING against an admonition from Catholic bishops, at least 55 professors from the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University have joined 14 of their colleagues who last week urged the passage of the reproductive health bill. The Ateneo teachers not only refused to toe the Church line to reject the bill, but urged the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines to reconsider its position and take into account the lives of 473,400 women who resorted to abortion because they lacked an effective way to prevent unwanted pregnancies. The 69 Catholic educators wrote to the 240 members of the House of Representatives and the 23-member Senate and attached to their letter an 11-page Declaration of Support for the Immediate Passage of House Bill 5043, which seeks to establish a national policy on family planning. The bill supports the use of contraceptives such as condoms, and age-appropriate sex education in schools, both of which the Church opposes....

EDITORIAL Philippine STAR www.philstar.com Monday, October 27, 2008 Seventy-six percent of Filipinos want family planning education in public schools, and 71 percent of the country’s Catholics favor the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill. Those are the results of a nationwide survey taken late last month by the Social Weather Stations. The results should allay concerns of lawmakers who are currently deliberating on House Bill 5043, or The Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood, and Population Development Act of 2008. Apart from promoting programs that will benefit women’s reproductive health, HB 5043 aims to introduce sex education in public schools and provide access to artificial contraceptives. Sex education is already being taught in grade school in certain exclusive schools. Women with sufficient education and financial means are aware of both natural and artificial methods of birth control, and how the right choice could be good for their reproductive health. That choic...

BY Mary Racelis www.newsbreak.com.ph Growing numbers of professional and educated lay Filipino Catholics believe they can. Increasingly uneasy that the unshakeable position of the Church contradicts directly their own understandings of Philippine realities, many are actually reading the bill to see for themselves – and emerging as its supporters. Catholic NGO workers, social workers, and social science researchers working in poor rural and urban communities overflowing with malnourished, out-of-school children and youth have particular problems with the Church position. They find it difficult to accept that poor mothers and fathers who want to avoid a fourth or fifth pregnancy or wait a few years before the next one, should be condemned for choosing reliable, contraceptive family planning methods. One urban poor woman was asked what the Church might say about her practice of saving part of her meager earnings to buy birth control pills every month. Her reply: “Ang simbahan ba ang...

I do not know why my friends and fellow professors at the Ateneo did not solicit my signature in this statement, but I sure agree with them on this note. It shows that dissent -- and the light of reason -- exists even when the official statement and the statsus quo say just to follow the Catholic teaching, blindly if need be. *** BY Carmela Fonbuena, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak | 10/16/2008 4:45 PM Fourteen faculty members of Catholic school Ateneo De Manila University are out to prove that not all Catholics agree with the Catholic Church’s opposition to the controversial reproductive health bill pending in the House of Representatives. In a 16-page position paper full of quotes from Catholic Church teachings and scientific studies on health, population, and poverty, the faculty members expressed their strong support for House Bill 5043 because “we believe that the provisions of the bill adhere to core principles of the Catholic social teaching.” The bill is controversial for promoting c...

By Efren L. Danao, Senior Reporter The Manila Times www.manilatimes.net The Catholic Church’s insistence on natural contraception is “outdated and archaic,” Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago said on Monday as she expressed support for bills on reproductive health. “The Catholic religious should get real!” she added. Senators Rodolfo Biazon and Panfilo Lacson have filed separate bills on reproductive health. These were similar to the ones they had filed in the previous Congress, but which were archived because of strong opposition from the Catholic Church. The Catholic bishops of the Philippines have been opposing these bills which they considered as pro-abortion. Some had even declared that authors of these bills would be denied the holy sacraments. The Church had often campaigned actively against the election of politicians favoring reproductive health and insisted that family planning is best pursued through natural methods. Santiago said that the “natural-law mentality” of the Church in...