Handbooks of Truths Behind the RH Bill

Published online on September 15, 2012.


Handbook of Truths Behind the R.H. Bill v.1

A La Sallite responds to the Pro-RH La Salle professors

This note is currently being circulated in Filipino pro-life Facebook pages. 

Dr. Bernardo Villegas obtained his Bachelor's degrees in Commerce and the Humanities (both Summa Cum Laude) from De La Salle University. 

RH Bill Is Not Pro-Life

By: Dr. Bernardo Villegas

It is not my usual practice to debate with specific individuals or groups about  the issues I address in my columns. I am making an exception this time, as some might already have inferred from the title of this commentary.  Recently, some faculty members of the De La Salle University declared publicly that they support the RH Bill and asserted categorically that "the RH Bill Is Pro-Life." As an alumnus of De La Salle University, having spent  my formative years in both  high school and college in this prestigious university, I would like to engage in a friendly dialogue with my fellow La Sallites by stating that there are provisions of the RH Bill that are clearly anti-life.

Bernardo Villegas: Vote No to RH Bill!

Vote No to RH Bill (Bernardo M Villegas PhD)

The sweet spot

Published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (mirabile visu!)

THINKING GLOBAL

The advantages of a large and growing population

By: Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas

June 15th, 2012

Thanks to Governor Amando Tetangco of the Central Bank, the man in the street has now been enlightened about a phrase that used to be limited to specialists in demographics and economic development. Referring to a “sweet spot” that the Philippine population is entering in the next 10 to 20 years, he expressed optimism about the prospects of higher growth for the Philippine economy because of the advantages of a young population both from the standpoints of abundant manpower supply and a large domestic market for goods and services. This sweet spot is made possible by what demographers call the demographic dividend, which is the benefit conferred on a country by a young labor force that is still growing faster than the retired force and the dependent children (those below 15 years of age).  This phrase was coined by Harvard demographer David Bloom. It was first applied to the favorable circumstances faced by such countries as Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea in the second half of the last century when these “tiger economies” grew at record levels of 10 to 12 percent for more than 20 years, catapulting their respective economies to First World status in just one generation.

Challenging the birth control mentality

Teaching Purity 

Changing World 

By DR. BERNARDO M. VILLEGAS 

May 17, 2012 


MANILA, Philippines — The birth control mentality deeply encrusted in the controversial RH Bill is increasingly out of synch with numerous pronouncements of international economists, business strategists, and foreign investors who are heaping praises on the Philippines for having a large, young, and growing population. The alarming voices from population control advocates, who used to categorically state that the Philippine population has already breached the 100-million mark, have been at least temporarily silenced by the revelation that the 2010 Census of Population and Housing by the National Statistics Office (NSO) placed the 2010 population at only 92.34 million, with the growth rate slowing down to an annual average of 1.9% during the 2000-2010 period from 2.34% in 1990-2000. Neomalthusians should be relieved that the Philippine population will not double in the next 30 years and will plateau at about 145 to 150 million some time before the middle of the present century. Given the high probability that Philippine GDP can grow at an average of 7% to 9% during the next 20 years, a population of some 150 million, mostly young Filipinos and Filipinas, will be a great advantage in a global village of predominantly aging countries in the developed world, including our Northeast Asian neighbors such as Japan, South Korea, and China. At 150 million people by mid-century the Philippines will have the population density of resource-poor but highly developed South Korea today.

Some common errors regarding the population issue

This article is more than a year old, but remains just as relevant:

Pitfalls in reporting on the population issue

By BERNARDO VILLEGAS

November 21, 2010

MANILA, Philippines – Over at least the last forty years, I have spent hundreds of manhours being interviewed by journalists and others interested in the issue of population growth in the Philippines.

I must have met more than a hundred journalists over the last two generations. In order to help the present crop of journalists learn from the mistakes of their predecessors in their profession, let me enumerate the common pitfalls I have observed as a business economist.

In the same way that I can accuse myself of ignorance in certain areas (like the most recent case of my not knowing about the UN protocol concerning the underenumeration of babies in population censuses), there have been some notorious cases of ignorance among journalists and other commentators who comment on the population problem of the Philippines.

The first I would like to cite has resurfaced in the current debates about the RH Bill. There are still reporters and commentators who claim, through ignorance, that the opposition to birth control is exclusively a Catholic position. For the nth time, I must remind them that some of the most prominent social scientists in modern times have concluded in their research that population growth is not the cause of mass poverty. The late Simon Kuznets, Harvard professor and Nobel Laureate in economics, was Jewish. He was the father of national income accounting and is responsible for such terms as Gross National Product and Gross Domestic Product. As a student of long-term economic growth, he was convinced that population growth not only was not responsible for mass poverty but was oftentimes a most positive stimulus to economic development. Another Jew, Julian Simon--a famous resource economist of the last Century actually wrote a best-seller entitled The Ultimate Resource, in which he maintained that people are the most important resources in integral human development and that birth control should not be considered as one of the instruments to eradicate mass poverty. Gary Becker, another non-Catholic and Nobel Laureate, who teaches at the University of Chicago, has also questioned population control as a means to attain economic development in his many scholarly studies on human capital.

Two articles that touch on the relation between the Philippines' population growth and its economic future

From Bernardo Villegas' January 12, 2012 column "What to expect in 2012":

I expect at least a 6% growth of GDP for the whole of 2012. Thanks to our not being too export dependent, we are partly insulated from the stagnation that the world economy will experience in 2012. Exports account for a little over 30% of our GDP in contrast with close to 200% in such tiger economies as Singapore and Hong Kong. 

These rich countries will see their GDP suffering from either a decline or a significant slowdown. Not the Philippines nor Indonesia, nor China nor India. They can thank their large populations which guarantee a large domestic market for their local businesses. Although I do not accept at face value the prediction by some population commission officials that the Philippine population will reach 97 million by the end of 2012 (it will be closer to 95 million), I welcome the talk of a large population. A large population attracts investors, both domestic and foreign, because of the strong domestic market they see. 

Even the lowest-income households (the so-called D and E markets) can offer attractive markets for the savvy business man who knows how to mine the "bottom of the pyramid." Ask Procter and Gamble, Unilever, Jollibee, McDonald's, Alaska Milk Corporation, Lucky Me, Nestle, etc. They are creative enough to design products that can be sold to the poorest of the poor. 

 ***

Just to humor a geomancer I overheard in a New Year's television program, let me agree with his "prediction" that the "water" attached to the Dragon symbolizes a flood of investments and consumption expenditures in the Philippines for 2012. This "flood" is made possible by the significant increase in domestic savings over the last four to five years and the still healthy demographic profile of the country in which the young still outnumber significantly the senior citizens. To the RH Bill proponent, let me repeat: It's the large population, stupid! 

What about "inclusive growth"? Will the growth lead to alleviating mass poverty? I am optimistic because I see the efforts of Vice President Binay complementing the excellent work of the economic team in controlling inflation and mobilizing funds for investments with pro-poor projects. I see the Vice President trying to replicate at the national level what he did when he was Mayor of Makati in ensuring that growth in one of the richest cities in the country would trickle down to the poor in terms of quality education in the public schools, health care, housing and welfare for the senior citizens. 

It was a very wise move of the President to assign the Vice President to two of the most effective channels to uplift the conditions of the masses: social housing and OFW welfare. Another source of optimism is the work I see being done at the Department of Public Works and Highways whose leadership is addressing the decades-old problem of inadequate rural and agricultural infrastructures. 

Next to providing their children with access to quality public education, the greatest service we can give to the poor, who are mostly in the rural areas, is to endow them with the infrastructures they need to make their small farms productive and to bring their produce to the markets cost effectively. 

We may not achieve our targets for the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, but we are headed towards the right direction. We are applying emergency measures to alleviate the economic sufferings of the poorest of the poor through the Conditional Cash Transfer program. 

But even more important for the medium-term reduction of poverty, we are creating the right environment for both public and private investments in the countryside, the only sustainable way of creating employment opportunities and thereby reducing mass poverty.

The following article has been doing the rounds among Filipino Facebook accounts:

PH could have 16th biggest economy in the world by 2050 - HSBC

12-Jan-12, Joseph Villanueva, InterAksyon.com 

MANILA, Philippines - HSBC said the Philippine economy may become the 16th largest in the world by 2050, dwarfing neighbors Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. 

The British banking giant said the Philippines could even outgrow oil-producing Saudi Arabia - host to the biggest concentration of overseas Filipino workers - or the Netherlands, which is home to a number of multinational companies. 

The forecast is contained in a study projecting the size of a hundred economies 40 years hence. HSBC expanded the report from the original 30-country review published in 2011. 

HSBC said the Philippine economy would likely expand 15 times from $112 billion today to $1.69 trillion in 2050. The forecast sends the Philippines 27 notches above its current ranking of 47 in the original group of 50 economies reviewed. 

“Our ranking is based on an economy’s current level of development and the factors that will determine whether it has the potential to catch up with more developed nations. These fundamentals include current income per capita, rule of law, democracy, education levels and demographic change, allowing us to project forward the gross domestic product (GDP) forward,” HSBC said. 

It said the Philippines' likely improvement would owe more to an expanding population than to any improvement in individual wealth. 

The Philippines joins a group of 26 countries that are expected to register the fastest growth through 2050 at five percent a year on average. 

Countries in this group “share a very low level of development but have made great progress in improving fundamentals. As they open themselves to the technology available elsewhere, they should enjoy many years of ‘copy and paste’ growth ahead,” HSBC said. 

Other members of the group are China, India, Egypt, Malaysia, Peru, Bangladesh, Algeria, Ukraine, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Tanzania and Kazakhstan, among others. 

A second group of countries whose growth would average from three to five percent includes Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, Russia, Indonesia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and New Zealand. 

Cellar-dwellers include developed economies such as the US, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Italy, South Korea, Spain, Autralia, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, South Africa, Austria, Sweden, Belgium, Singapore, Israel, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates, Norway, Portugal, Finland, Denmark, Cuba, Qatar, Uruguay, Luxemburg and Slovenia.

The RH bill is the product of a short-term view

I originally posted this on August 26 after receiving it via a private Facebook group. I pulled this out after being informed that it had not yet been published by Mr. Villegas. This was finally published by Manila Bulletin on August 29, 2011 and I'm now reposting this as well. 

PRESIDENT AQUINO AND THE RH BILL
Bernardo M. Villegas

As a long-time critic of population control measures, I respect the views of President Benigno Aquino III on the RH Bill. He has supported its inclusion into the priority bills recommended by LEDAC because he is sincerely convinced that population control is indispensable to the reduction of mass poverty in the Philippines. He has arrived at this conclusion after consulting with many of the expert economic advisers in and outside his Administration. I know for a fact that the vast majority of them are neo-Malthusians in orientation. They are convinced that rapid population growth is a major reason for the high incidence of poverty in the Philippines. It is difficult to blame the President for listening to their advice.

I will not repeat here the many economic arguments I have used to counter the view that population growth is a major cause of poverty. I have written numerous articles about the very positive dimensions of population growth. In fact, I just came out with a book entitled precisely The Positive Dimensions of Population Growth that is available in all the major bookstores in Manila.

What I want to tell the President here is that he is taking a very short-term view of the problem of what is called in the Philippine Development Plan, 2011-2016 “inclusive growth.” Even assuming, without granting, that population control can help in the important task of eradicating poverty in the Philippines, I would like to point out to the President that he is ignoring the long-term consequences of distributing artificial contraceptives for free to the poor. There is enough hard evidence in other countries that followed the same path of population control which shows that a contraceptive mentality inevitably leads to a significant rise in abortion, divorce, single mothers and mentally unbalanced adolescents.

The Philippine Constitution's Article on the Family and the Catholic principles behind it

From Bernardo Villegas' article, "Christian Roots of the Family" (emphases mine):

The very Constitution of the Philippines is exceptional in its mandating the State to strengthen the family and respect marriage as an "inviolable institution." It is also the only Constitution in the world that explicitly commands the State to protect equally the mother and the unborn baby from conception. 

Even professional organizations such as those of seafarers go out of their way to recognize the need to strengthen the link between seafarers who are away for a long period of time and their family members left behind. 

Although the family is a natural institution whose strength and sustainability can be fostered in any society regardless of creed or culture, precisely because it is based on natural law, there is little doubt that in the Philippines, it is Christian principles and tradition that contribute most to its stability. Thanks to the Catholic Church, there is no divorce in the Philippines. To give credit to whom it is due, I remember that it was the late Justice Cecilia Munoz Palma, who chaired the Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 Philippine Constitution, who was most responsible for the whole article on The Family. 

It was her strong Catholic convictions that inspired her to ensure that the family would be protected in the fundamental law of the land. It will be Christianity, above all, that will help Filipinos, now and in the future, to ensure that the breakdown of the family that is so rampant even in formerly Christian societies as those in Europe will not contaminate our shores. 

There is no room for complacency, however. The very phenomenon of Filipino Overseas Workers is a threat to the stability of the family because of fathers and mothers leaving their families behind for long periods of time. Through the media of mass communication, especially television and the Internet, anti-family lifestyles are being absorbed almost by osmosis by the youth in the Philippines. 

To make matters worse, there is a vocal minority — funded and goaded by foreign groups — who are aggressively supporting legislation to introduce such anti-family measures as artificial birth control, divorce, and same-sex marriage. They are heedless of empirical studies by social scientists abroad, like Nobel laureate George Akerlof, showing that the widespread use of artificial contraceptives inevitably leads to more abortions, divorce, single mothers, and mentally troubled adolescents. 

We have to learn from the sad experiences of many European countries. Because they have abandoned their Christian principles and traditions, the institution of the family is in shambles. Pope Benedict XVI has been waging an admirable campaign to convince Europe to return to its Christian roots. In a best seller entitled Values in a Time of Upheaval, the Pope wrote: "Now I come to a second point for European identity: marriage and the family. 

Monogamous marriage, as the basic structure for the relationship between a man and a woman and as the cell for the construction of civic society, has been formed by biblical faith. It has given Europe — East and West — its specific 'face' and its specifically human character, precisely because one must struggle again and again to realize the form of fidelity and of renunciation that monogamous marriage by its very nature requires. Europe would cease to be Europe if this basic cell of its social construction were to disappear or to be changed in its essence. We are all aware of the risks confronting marriage and the family today — partly because its indissolubility is watered down by an ever easier access to divorce, and partly because of the increasing cohabitation of men and women without the legal form of marriage. 

"The paradoxical modern demand of homosexual partnerships to receive a legal form that is more or less the equivalent of marriage is a clear antithesis to this tradition. This trend departs from the entire moral history of mankind, which despite all the variety in the legal forms governing marriage — has always been aware that this is essentially a special form of the relationship of men and women, open to children and hence to the formation of a family. This is not a question of discrimination. 

Rather, we must ask what man is as man and as woman, and how we may correctly shape the relationship between them. If this relationship becomes increasingly detached from legal forms, while at the same time homosexual partnerships are increasingly viewed as equal in rank to marriage, we are on the verge of a dissolution of our concept of man, and the consequences can only be extremely grave..." 

Filipinos as individuals and the Philippines as a nation have a serious responsibility and challenge to defend the family as a natural institution and to strengthen its roots in the Christian faith. In the midst of an increasingly pagan world, we have to have the faith, fortitude, and hope of the early Christians. Just picture the pagan environment in which they had to preach the doctrine of Christ. American author Leo Trese describes it vividly in his book A Trilogy: 

"There was no sense of the dignity of human beings; two-thirds of the people were slaves, chattels of their owners. Life was cheap; a father had the right to kill his own children or his own slaves if he felt in the mood. Marriage was a mere gesture; all a husband had to do, to divorce his wife, was to put her out and close the door upon her; women were looked upon as the servants of men and tools of male pleasure." 

But the early Christians were not daunted. Thanks to them, we are now Christians and it is now our turn to bring back the doctrine of Christ to the world, including Europe from whom we received the faith. As Trese continues: "This was the world that the poor apostles were expected to convert. 

In the face of slavery, they would have to preach the inviolable dignity of the human person. In the face of pagan contempt for human life, they would have to preach God's exclusive dominion over life. In the face of easy divorce, debased womanhood and rampant lust, they would have to preach the sanctity of marriage, the true ideal of womanhood, and the obligation to continence..." Without exaggerating, Filipinos are among those in today's "time of upheaval" called to live their faith as the early Christians did. Our very human happiness depends upon it. 

For comments, my e-mail address is bvillegas@uap.edu.ph.

Why the State must listen to the Church

The Ethics of Public Policy

By DR. BERNARDO M. VILLEGAS

August 25, 2011

MANILA, Philippines — Whatever the outcome of the RH Bill controversy, one thing is sure: there has to be a continuing dialogue between the Government and the Catholic Bishops about public policy that has manifestly moral or doctrinal dimensions.

Whatever the extreme secularists may say, they cannot ignore the fact that the dominant religion of the country is Roman Catholicism, a major belief of which is that morality cannot be limited to private consciences of individuals but must also apply to the "things of Caesar" that are covered by the social doctrine of the Church and public morals.

Examples of public policy issues that have clearly moral dimensions are those related to the family and marriage, the regulation of private property such as agrarian reform, the setting of a just family wage, the protection of the physical environment, human trafficking, gambling, drug abuse, etc. Not only the bishops and priests but also the lay faithful have all the right to bring up moral principles in judging the legitimacy of public policy in such matters.

Here I summarize the main points concerning the relations between Church and State that have been stressed by Pope Benedict XVI in his book "Values in a Time of Upheaval." There are seven of them:

1. The state is not itself the source of truth and morality. It cannot produce truth from its own self by means of an ideology based on people or race or class or some other entity. Nor can it produce truth via the majority. The state is not absolute. To maintain otherwise would pave the way for more Hitlers, Stalins, and Pol Pots.

2. The goal of the state cannot consist in a freedom without defined contents. In order to establish a meaningful and viable ordering of life in society, the state requires a minimum of truth, of knowledge of the good, that cannot be manipulated.

3. Accordingly, the state must receive from outside itself the essential measure of knowledge and truth with regard to that which is good. The moral principles of Christian faith could possibly be such guiding principles.

4. The "outside" might, in the best possible scenario, be the pure insight of reason. It would be the task of an independent philosophy to cultivate this insight and to keep watch over it. In practice, however, such a pure rational evidential quality independent of history does not exist. Metaphysical and moral reason comes into action only in a historical context.

All states have recognized and applied moral reason on the basis of antecedent religious traditions, which also provide moral education. In the Philippines, Christianity is the source of such religious traditions and moral education. For close to five centuries, the Philippines has provided a positive model of a relationship between moral knowledge based on religion and the good ordering of the state.

5. Christian faith has proved to be the most universal and rational religious culture. Even today, it offers reason the basic structure of moral insight which, if it does not actually lead to some kind of evidential quality, at least furnishes the basis of a rational moral faith without which no society can endure.

6. There should always be distinction between the Church and the State. By merging with the State, the Church would destroy both the essence of the State and its own essence.

7. The Church remains something "outside" the State, for only thus can both Church and State be what they are meant to be. Like the State, the Church too must remain in is own proper place and within its boundaries. It must respect its own being and its own freedom, precisely in order to be able to perform for the State the service that the latter requires.

The Church must exert itself with all its vigor so that in it there may shine forth the moral truth that it offers to the State and that ought to become evident to the citizens of the State. This truth must be vigorous within the Church, and it must form men, for only then it will have the power to convince others and to be a force working like a leaven for all of society.

I cannot think of a better framework for the continuing dialogue of the government with the Catholic bishops and other moral leaders of the major faiths in the Philippines. But more importantly, the Catholic lay people with a well formed conscience must be very proactive in educating government officials in all the branches of government about the moral principles that they are able to arrive at with the use of their reason aided by their faith.

We can apply to ourselves these words of Pope Benedict XVI to the Europeans: "Today, at this precise hour in history, Europe and the world need the presence of the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ and remains close to us in the Holy Spirit.

As Christians, we are responsible for maintaining the presence of God in our world, for it is only this presence that has the power to keep man from destroying himself." 

For comments, my e-mail address is bvillegas@uap.edu.ph.

Will the RH Bill really enjoy the "presumption of constitutionality"?

Senator Santiago's "constitutional" follow-up to her "encyclical"

Wilfredo Jose

Miriam's "constitutional" follow-up to her "encyclical"

The Reproductive Health Act (Sponsorship speech part 2)

The meat of Senator Miriam Santiago's RH Sponsorship speech (Parts 2 and 3) rests in claiming that the enactment of the RH bill will enjoy a presumption of constitutionality. According to her since there is no clear constitutional prohibition, the passage of the bill would amount to a "legislative construction" of Article 2 Section 12 which is at the heart of the constitutionality issue.

I am not about to argue Senator Santiago's legal opinion point by point, for that is well beyond my reach. I would just like to point out that at least three legal luminaries do not share her legal constructions, and in fact flatly goes against them.

Read the rest of the article HERE. 

The link between contraception and abortion

Why contraception leads to abortion

Business and Society

By BERNARDO M. VILLEGAS

June 20, 2011

MANILA, Philippines — Some well meaning individuals support the RH Bill because they contend that a more widespread availability of contraceptives will reduce illegal abortions in the Philippines.

They sincerely bewail the thousand of illegal abortions being performed yearly in the Philippines and they are of the opinion that making pills, condoms and other contraceptive devices more freely available, especially to the poor, will actually reduce these illegal abortions.

Such an opinion is based on pure speculation that is not based on empirical science. On the other hand, there is abundant research in countries where contraceptive devices are freely available in vending machines or the corner drug store demonstrating that abortions tend to increase with the widespread use of contraception.

Population - the ultimate resource

Rise and fall of Japan

By BERNARDO M. VILLEGAS

June 17, 2011, 3:34am

MANILA, Philippines — Like Roger Federer in world tennis, Japan is now No. 3 in the ranking of the most powerful economies in the world. It gave way to China last year for the position of No. 2. The US, still No. 1, may be feeling the heat from China in the same way that Rafa Nadal is being challenged by Novak Djokovic, for the No. 1 position in tennis.

A recent article by Shinji Fukukawa, former vice minister of the Ministry of the International Trade and Industry and president of Dentsu Research Insitute, diagnosed how Japan rose to the top, almost challenging the US for number one position in the last century, and why it is now facing a rather bleak economic future.

Mr. Fukukawa made it crystal clear that population increase was a major factor for the economic progress that Japan attained in the last century: "Economic growth depends on the rates of population increase and technological evolution, among other factors. Technological evolution relies on the capacities of human beings. So its kernel factor is human power."

Bishop Jose Sorra and Bernardo Villegas on Sex Education

The theology of the Body
By DR. BERNARDO M. VILLEGAS
May 20, 2011, 3:03am

MANILA, Philippines — Those who are pushing for sex education in our public schools should be aware of the types of sex education practiced in countries like the United States because some of our educators, wittingly or unwittingly, are emulating models from the West.

Fortunately, a recent book on the Theology of the Body written by former Bishop of Legazpi Jose Sorro compiled a detailed account of sex education in the US He made an expose of what is known as comprehensive sex education which teaches children not only about the biological facts of sex, but also about birth control, contraception, abortion, masturbation, homosexual behavior, and other moral evils.

The proponents of this approach to sex education claim that whatever they teach is "value free," and, therefore, allegedly free of biases and prejudices.

They fail to realize that when a teacher tells children that no sex act is immoral, and that we should not judge others who have "different sexual lifestyles" from our own, they are actually expressing a very clear ideological or philosophical bias — that there is no such thing as morality.

They are advocating a completely amoral set of values.

Bishop Sorro has done parents, teachers, and the youth a great service by documenting in his book Crumbs II some sample curricula on sex education in some US schools. He reports that after researchers, funded by the National Institute of Education, examined 60 standard social studies textbooks used by the majority of children in Grades 1 through 12 in US public schools, the central conclusion of the study was dramatic: Religion, traditional family values, and conservative positions on every known moral issue have been expunged completely from the curricula of all public school students. The words "marriage," "wedding," "husband," and "wife," did not appear once in any of the 60 textbooks.

The findings of Bishop Sorro should make Filipino parents very vigilant about what could be introduced in our public schools, whether or not the RH Bill is passed. There are already some existing textbooks that have been patterned after the US experiences. There are already contents which directly attack Christian values and traditional Filipino values.

Whereas Christianity and traditional Filipino values emphasize virginity before marriage and fidelity to the commandments of God, some of these materials patterned after US public schools have diligently banned God, and tell kids that contraception, sterilization, abortion, premarital sex, adultery, sodomy, masturbation, and even sex with animals are value-free and, therefore, involve human rights that no one can tamper with — especially parents.

Bishop Sorro specifically cites two textbooks commonly used in comprehensive sex education in US public schools. One of them is entitled Changing Bodies, Changing Lives: A Book for Teens on Sex and Relationships, probably the most popular sex education text in the United States.

It has been in continuous use in thousands of high schools since it appeared in 1980. It includes the statement, "Bisexuality is an openness to loving, sexual relationships with both sexes — our true nature... Gay men, too, have many ways of making love. One may caress the other's penis with his hand or his mouth.

Or one may put his penis in another's anus." No wonder the widely popular TV show "Glee," in the name of human rights for homosexuals, shows passionate kissing between men.

Another book cited by Bishop Sorro is called "Boys and Girls and Sex." Written by Wardell Pomeroy, it comes in separate versions, Boys and Sex and Girls and Sex. Some of the more outrageous statements found in these books are: "Premarital intercourse does have its definite value as a training ground for marriage or some other committed relationships... to make everyday comparisons again, it's like taking a car out for a test run before you buy it.... Farm boys have had loving sexual relationships with animals..."

Then there is the extremely popular program called Enhancing Skills to Prevent Pregnancy. It tells teachers to break down their student's inhibitions with the formidable weapon of peer pressure: Some teachers bring cucumbers or zucchini to class and show how to apply and remove condoms, or open the packages and unroll condoms for students to inspect and pass around.

This must have been the inspiration of a prominent Thai businessman who used to visit Philippine schools and ask girl students to blow a condom like a balloon.

This same Thai businessman was so successful in "condomizing" Thailand that this neighbor of ours may be the first country in the history of humanity to grow old before becoming rich.

Since there are US foundations who are very active in promoting birth control in the Philippines, it is not to be alarmist to fear that some of these ideas and pedagogical techniques can creep into Philippine schools, both public and private, almost by osmosis. Parents have to be very much aware of the type of sex education being imparted in the schools where their children are studying.

Nothing can be taken for granted. We have to thank Bishop Sorro for sounding the alarm bells. Those who want to purchase his book may contact Med Villanueva at 0917-521-3883 or Fr. Joseph Salando at 0922-821-6655. For comments, my e-mail address is bvillegas@uap.edu.ph.

Bernardo Villegas on the RH Bill and the Contraceptive Mentality

(Better posted late than never!)

A contraceptive mentality

By BERNARDO M. VILLEGAS

August 12, 2010, 5:37pm

A reader wrote me asking for a fuller discussion of what I called in a previous article the "contraceptive mentality." In general, it is an attitude ingrained especially in women who are afraid of conceiving a baby and do everything possible to avoid being pregnant. They may actually get married or have a live-in partner and resort to artificial or natural means of contraception in order not to have a baby. Or they never get married because of their fear of becoming pregnant.

This mentality is usually a result of years of mind-conditioning from the government and other sectors of society presenting the alleged evils of overpopulation, as in the case of Singapore in the 1960s and 1970s when there was a systematic government campaign to influence married couples to "stop at two." After some time, this conditioning from society is replaced by a materialistic and consumerist culture in which the reason for not having a baby is no longer the threat of poverty but the inconvenience of a child. Some educated women find having children as an obstacle to pursuing their careers or living a fuller though egotistic life. This is what has happened actually to Singapore which has the highest per capita income in Southeast Asia but is now facing depopulation because of the very low fertility rate. Attempts to reverse the trend have generally failed, despite very generous economic incentives for women to have children.

Ironically, a contraceptive mentality among some sectors of the population can actually lead to higher rates of abortion. It is frequently asserted that contraception, if made safe and available to all, is the most effective remedy against abortion. The facts speak for themselves in countries like the United States. Contraceptives like pills and condoms are freely available in stores and dispensers. What may seem baffling is that there are millions of abortions every year in the US. Upon closer scrutiny, however, this should not be surprising. A widespread contraceptive mentality easily leads to abortion when an unwanted life is conceived. The RH Bill being discussed in Congress may not be promoting abortion.

It, however, can easily promote a contraceptive mentality, especially with the constant reference to poverty as a major reason for passing the bill. As can be gleaned from the experiences of other countries, the widespread availability of contraception has the perverse effect of increasing abortion when there is a failure of contraception.

A contraceptive mentality — a general unwillingness to have children — could actually be prevalent in individuals even before they marry or before they actually use contraceptive drugs or devices. The contraceptive or anti-conception "mentality" is in the mind (the intention of preventing conception), while contraceptive "use" is in the action (the actual use of contraception). The contraceptive mentality is an attitude — whether or not it is followed by actual contraceptive use. The mentality can victimize all persons, whether married or not. Children and adolescents who, for selfish reasons, do not want to have siblings are showing early signs of a contraceptive mentality, even without the knowledge of contraceptives.

Following the definition of a contraceptive mentality as a "state of mind unreasonably closed to having children," married couples can have a contraceptive mentality even if they do not actually use contraceptives.

In their minds, they do not want to raise children, even if they have the resources to do so. Among those who are single, a contraceptive mentality can exist if they harbor in their minds the wrong reasons for not having children. There are dedicated celibates whose reason for not having children is noble, i.e., to give themselves completely to God or to be at the complete service of their dependent parents and siblings. But in not a few cases, the deliberate decision to avoid sex and marriage may be based on unsound reasons, i.e., "marriage is hell," "having a spouse is an onerous burden," "children are a hindrance to personal fulfillment," etc. Persons whose decision to remain unmarried is founded on reasons derogatory to child-bearing already have a contraceptive mentality.

In many of the developed countries that are suffering from the extinction of their population because of very low fertility rates, this mentality among the unmarried can actually be considered unpatriotic. I have heard not a few leaders of aging societies like Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore appealing to their women to have children for love of country.

The only country I know that has succeeded in reversing a fertility rate from as low as 1.3 or 1.4 children per fertile woman to close to replacement of 2.1 children is France, which was one of the first European countries to suffer from very low fertility rates early in the last century. In the last decade or so, government incentives for women to bear children have succeeded because of the characteristic pragmatism of the French. Instead of trying to convince women who still have no children and who may be victimized by the contraceptive mentality, the government targeted women who already have children, say one or two, and offered very generous incentives (financial rewards, very long maternity leaves, paternity leaves, etc.) for them to have additional children. It seems it is much easier to convince couples who have already children to have a few more than to try to change the minds of those may already be suffering from a contraceptive mentality.

All these considerations should serve as a warning to the legislators who are dead set on trying to resuscitate what should already be a dead issue, the Reproductive Health Bill. The RHB is shot through and through with a contraceptive mentality.

Even if arguably it may address some short-run problems of shortage of resources, it will definitely endanger future generations of Filipinos who may have to contend with the so-called demographic winter. Sustainable development requires that we look for solutions to the problems of the present generation that do not harm future generations. Clearly the RHB will not lead to sustainable development.

For comments, my e-mail address is bvillegas@uap.edu.ph.

Behind the scenes on the 1986 Constitutional Commission's declaration that conception -- and therefore life -- begins at fertilization

(See this as well: An important legal resource: the 1986 Constitutional Commission declares that life begins at fertilization.)

Conception is fertilization

By BERNARDO M. VILLEGAS

December 16, 2010, 11:00pm

MANILA, Philippines – In the Philippine Constitution of 1987, conception is defined as fertilization, the moment the egg is fertilized by the sperm. This was the majority decision (32 to 8) of the members of the Constitutional Commission of 1986 convoked by the late President Corazon Aquino. This majority decision was made after the most thorough debate in which some of the most articulate members of the Commission raised their objections, bringing up some of the issues that are now being revived by the population control advocates. Some raised the issue of personhood. They claimed that the fertilized ovum is not yet a person, even quoting Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. Others maintained that the fertilized ovum is not yet viable and, therefore, cannot be considered a human being.

Despite all these objections, the majority decided that conception should be defined as the moment of fertilization.

I was the sponsor of the provision and had to answer all the objections. For the sake of constitutionalists, lawyers, and Supreme Court justices, let me describe how I defended the position that the fertilized ovum is already a human being. To the question, is the fertilized ovum alive? My answer was: “Biology categorically says yes, the fertilized ovum is alive. First of all, like all living organisms, it takes in nutrients which it processes by itself. It begins doing this upon fertilization. Secondly, as it takes in these nutrients, it grows from within. Thirdly, it multiplies itself at a geometric rate in the continuous process of cell division. All these processes are vital signs of life. Therefore, there is no question that biologically the fertilized ovum has life.”

To the second question “Is it human?,” my answer was: “Genetics gives an equally categorical ‘yes.’ At the moment of conception, the nuclei of the ovum and the sperm rupture. As this happens, 23 chromosomes from the ovum combine with 23 chromosomes of the sperm to form a total of 46 chromosomes. A chromosome count of 46 is found only – and I repeat, only – in human cells. Therefore, the fertilized ovum is human. Since these two questions have been answered affirmatively, we must conclude that if the fertilized ovum is both alive and human, then, as night follows day, it must be human life. Its nature is human.

It must be stressed that the question about the fertilized ovum being human has to be settled by the natural sciences. In contrast, the question about personhood, that is, when does God put a soul into the fetus goes beyond the natural sciences. It is a philosophical or theological issue and cannot be settled by resorting to empirical evidence. That is why when Commissioner Blas Ople asked me whether there is in jurisprudence anything that will help determine the approximate moment of conception, I replied that only natural sciences have the answer. In my reply, I said: “I would like to read this specific statement by natural scientists about when human life begins. This is taken from the Handbook on Abortion by Dr. and Mrs. J.C. Wilke. The most distinguished scientific meeting of recent years that considered this question of when human life begins was the First International Conference on Abortion held in Washington, DC, in October, 1967. It brought together authorities from around the world in the fields of medicine, law, ethics, and social sciences. They met together in a think tank for several days. The first major question considered by the medical group was: When does human life begin? The medical group was composed of biochemists, professors of obstetrics and gynecology, geneticists, and so forth, and was represented proportionately as to academic discipline, race, and religion. For example, only 20 percent were Catholics. Their almost unanimous conclusion, 19 to 1, was as follows: ‘The majority of our group could find no point in time between the union of sperm and egg which is the fertilization or, at least the blastocyst stage and the birth of the infant at which point we could say that this was not a human life (the blastocyst stage is shortly after fertilization and would account for twinning).”

It was, therefore, the intent of the large majority of the framers of the Constitution of 1987 to define conception as fertilization. No amount of further debate will change that. Only a charter change can modify that conclusion. It is, therefore, futile for the population control advocates to suggest that conception should be defined as implantation. They will have to move for an amendment of the Constitution for their view to prosper. In the meantime, any contraceptive device (e.g. the “morning after” pill, the IUD, etc.) that can be medically demonstrated to be abortifacient, i.e. killing the fertilized ovum before implantation, will always be declared unconstitutional, whether or not the RH bill is passed. As far as the present Constitution is concerned, attacking the fertilized ovum is killing a human life. No amount of philosophizing can change that. For comments, my email address is bvillegas@uap.edu.ph.

Economist on the RH Bill: Don't blame the babies

Dr. Bernardo Villegas speaking out against the RH Bill:





Other videos versus the RH Bill can be seen in the University of Asia and the Pacific's own Youtube channel.

Campaign for Holy Purity

Campaign for holy purity

By BERNARDO VILLEGAS

November 18, 2010, 5:05pm

MANILA, Philippines – Whether or not the RH bill is passed, we can be sure that there will be an aggressive campaign to distribute contraceptives by family planning NGOs from the Western world in cooperation with some of the executive departments of the government that have reasons to believe wrongly that contraceptives can solve the problem of mass poverty, reduce maternal mortality, eliminate illegal abortions, or diminish unwanted pregnancies. This tandem will obviously get the strong support of pharmaceutical companies marketing artificial contraceptives. All these groups are deaf to the arguments of non-Catholic experts like Nobel laureate in Economics George Akerlof that there is strong empirical evidence correlating a contraceptive mentality with such social malaise as abortions, marital infidelity, divorce, unwed mothers, abandoned and mentally troubled children, etc. From what we can gather from the contents of the various RH bills, the campaign will target not only married couples but also unmarried persons, including children and adolescents. The message, therefore, will be instant sexual gratification.

How do we counteract the nefarious influences of such an aggressive campaign? I know of no other way but for practicing Catholics and other people of good will to show by the example of their lives that the virtue of holy purity can be lived even in today's sexually permissive environment by married couples, single people, priests and nuns, and others who have embraced the state of apostolic celibacy. No amount of argumentation can convince people that chastity is possible except through their witnessing personal examples of this virtue.

One of the most important preachers about the virtue of holy purity in modern times was St. Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei. He was a precursor of the Venerable John Paul II in proclaiming to the whole world that chastity in the middle of the world is possible through human effort and the grace of God. He had his own "theology of the body" before Pope John Paul II treated of this very important topic in numerous lectures in his Wednesday audiences in Rome. I remember reading a homily St. Josemaria preached on December 2, 1951, the first Sunday of Advent, in which he spoke forcefully about the virtue of holy purity. Since we are soon entering the Season of Advent, it would be timely for us to use this period of penance to intensify the way we live the 6th and 9th commandments of God. Our giving more importance to holy purity in our lives can just be the antidote needed to combat the feverish campaign of the contraceptive pushers to have the RH bill passed before Christmas. After all, sacrifice after prayer is the most potent force to obtain favors from God.

Let me quote from the homily of St. Josemaria: "Lust of the flesh is not limited to the disordered tendencies of our senses in general, nor to the sexual drive, which ought to be directed and is not bad in itself, since it is a noble human reality that can be sanctified. Note, therefore, that I never speak of impurity, but of purity, because Christ is speaking to all of us when he says: 'Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.' By divine vocation, some are called to live this purity in marriage. Others, foregoing all human love, are called to respond solely and passionately to God's love. Far from being slaves to sensuality, both the married and the unmarried are to be masters of their bodies and hearts in order to give themselves unstintingly to others."

St. Josemaria always made it clear that there are other human and supernatural virtues which are more important than holy purity. Charity, faith, hope, prudence, justice, and many others. Contrary to some criticisms, christianity is not obsessed with chastity: "Those who write or preach almost exclusively on this topic are deforming Christianity, in my view, for they forget other virtues so important to the Christian and also to our life in society." But St. Josemaria continues: "Holy purity is not the only nor the principal Christian virtue. It is, however, essential if we are to persevere in the daily effort of our sanctification. If it is not lived, there can no apostolic dedication. Purity is a consequence of the love that prompts us to commit to Christ our soul and body, our faculties and senses. It is not something negative; it is a joyful affirmation."

St. Josemaria correlates impurity with other defects of character that can harm both individuals and society itself: "Earlier I said that lust of the flesh is not limited to disordered sensuality. It also means softness, laziness bent on the easiest, most pleasurable way, any apparent shortcut, even at the expense of infidelity to God." How many times have we heard managers complaining about the tendency of many Filipinos to take short cuts, to be satisfied with mediocre work, manifesting the "tama na" syndrome? These are the same people who can easily fall into sins of lust because of their penchant for instant gratification. These are the easy targets of the peddlers of artificial contraceptives.

All of us can be overcome by this weakness. At this time of Advent, let us take to heart the following advice of St. Josemaria: "To abdicate in this way is equivalent to letting oneself fall completely under the imperious sway of the law of sin, about which St. Paul warned us: 'When I wish to do good I discover this law, namely, that evil is at hand for me. For I am delighted with the law of God according to the inner man, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me prisoner to the law of sin...Unhappy man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?' But listen to the answer of the Apostle: 'The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. We can and ought to fight always to overcome the lust of the flesh, because, if we are humble, we will always be granted the grace of the Lord." 

For comments, my e-mail address is bvillegas@uap.edu.ph.