There’s a lot of truth in the position of Senate Majority Leader Tito Sotto that there may be no longer any need for Congress to pass the controversial reproductive health bill in the wake of the fact that the Aquino administration has already earmarked P7.7 billion for reproductive health programs in the 2012 national budget.
The P7.7 billion appropriated for reproductive health programs for next year could well be implemented without Congress enacting the controversial RH bill that has divided the country.
Logically, as Senator Loren Legarda asked: “If the resources are available anyway to fund the RH bill, why would we need to enact a bill? This was in answer to Senator Franklin Drilon’s comment that the allocation for reproductive health in 2012 would only benefit 50 percent of the women belonging to the lowest quintile of our economic strata.
What is important to consider is that if the budget for 2012 already included reproductive health programs contained in the controversial RH bill, it would be foolish to enact the latter, isn’t it?
Note that the allocation of P7.7 billion for reproductive health programs would include the DoH giving away condoms and intrauterine devices, which the RH bill intends to do.
See as well the following news article: RH bill duplicates health program
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