The imperialist undertones of the RH bill

The Leftists and RH bill

Changing World

By BERNARDO M. VILLEGAS

MANILA, Philippines — I am very familiar with the leftist movement in this country because some of its leading lights such as Jose Maria Sison hatched the Kabataan Makabayan (KM) in the late 1960s and early 1970s in one of the rooms of the house of my parents in Singalong. My brother Edberto M. Villegas was one of the founders of KM and was especially active in the underground movement against the Marcos dictatorship.

In fact, Eddie was imprisoned and tortured in Camp Crame for about two years. I used to visit him and admired him for his patriotism while remaining critical of his Marxist beliefs. He has been a long-time professor of political economy and social studies in the UP system of schools (his last assignment was as Chair of the Social Studies Department of the UP Manila campus). Ever a scholar and academic, he still teaches at the UP even after having retired a few years ago.

Although his radical views about the market economy might have mellowed a bit, moving towards the German model of the social market economy, he is still very much a fierce fighter of imperialist forces that threaten Philippine sovereignty.

He still participates in rallies in front of the US embassy when he perceives attempts of the American government to perpetuate their colonial practices in the Philippines. I find his consistent and principled stand in great contrast with the so-called leftists in the House of Representatives who have swallowed hook, line, and sinker the anti-natalist propaganda of some American officials and private organizations.

They are either ignorant of the secret document called NSA 200 written by Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State, to President Gerald Ford in 1974, or they choose to ignore it. The document leaves no doubt about the imperialist intent of US-inspired campaigns to introduce population control programs in developing countries like the Philippines (this formerly secret document actually names the Philippines as one of the target nations for population control propaganda).

The gist of the document is that rapid growth of population in what are known today as emerging markets would threaten US long-term security because America would no longer have unlimited access to the natural resources of these nations if their populations explode.

The modern version of this fear of population explosion has spread to European countries that are suffering from the scourge of the demographic winter. Because their fertility rates have dropped to below replacement levels, many European countries are afraid of being "Islamized" or dominated by other cultures through the massive inflow of immigrant workers whom they need to man their respective economies. They are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea: they need the foreign workers but they are afraid of cultural annihilation.

I am glad Senator Vicente Sotto has questioned some of his colleagues in the Senate about the very active presence and proselytism inside and outside of the Philippine Congress of the disciples of Margaret Sanger, the birth control and eugenics campaigner par excellence in US history.

I cannot think of a better example of cultural imperialism when I see foreigners, not only Americans but also some Europeans, actively funding the pro-RH Bill lobbyists. The most sacred part of the culture of a nation has to do with attitudes and practices concerning the family, marriage and the conjugal act. The leftists in the House of Representatives, who used to rail about US imperialism in the past, are now among those who are the most active in allowing aliens to brainwash the Filipino youth so that they radically change centuries-old traditions concerning the family, especially those related to the immense value given to children.

While I criticize some of today's leftists for being blind to the imperialist undertones of the RH Bill, I congratulate them for having abandoned the theologies of revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The image of Vilma Santos playing the role of a nun inflicted with the Theology of Liberation error in the film "Sister Stella L" returns vividly to my mind every time I read about her success as a local government official in my home province, Batangas.

Thanks to the efforts of the late Blessed John Paul the Great and his able assistant at that time, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), the Church was able to exorcise the evil spirit of liberation theology. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Part II of Jesus of Nazareth, "Since that time (the 1960s), there has been a noticeable reduction in the wave of theologies of revolution that attempt to justify violence as a means of building a better world — the 'kingdom' — by interpreting Jesus as a 'Zealot.' The cruel consequences of religiously motivated violence are only too evident to us all. Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be. It serves, not humanity, but inhumanity" (Page 15).

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

"Under the guise of pro-choice and poverty alleviation"

I rarely post news articles here, but this one's too interesting NOT to post. The funny thing is that Gabriela had released a press release (see the combox) on May 30, 2011, demanding that debate on the RH Bill be stopped and that it be passed immediately. Well, had their wishes been followed, the population control provisions wouldn't have been scrapped at all!

2 RH authors want population control provisions scrapped

ANDREO C. CALONZO, GMA News

06/01/2011 | 12:02 AM

Two authors of the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill at the House of Representatives on Tuesday appealed to their colleagues to scrap three population control provisions in the measure.

Gabriela Women’s party-list Reps. Emerenciana de Jesus and Luzviminda Ilagan said these three portions of House Bill 4244 or the consolidated RH bill may “release the floodgate[s] for the State to carry out its population control program under the guise of pro-choice and poverty alleviation."

“Ang kahirapan ng bansa ay hindi dahil sa paglobo ng populasyon kundi dahil sa hindi pagkakapantay-pantay at korupsyon. Ito ay health issue at hindi population issue. Ito ay usaping kalusugan," Ilagan said in a press briefing Tuesday.

The party-list representatives particularly want Section 3 (L) or the guiding principle deleted stating that “gender equality and women empowerment are central elements of reproductive health and population and development."

They also want to scrap Section 12 or the provision on the integration of family planning and responsible parenthood component in the country’s anti-poverty programs.

The women lawmakers also warned of naming the supposedly “notorious" Population Commission as a coordinating body once the bill is enacted into law, as stated in Section 25 of HB 4244.

“These provisions must be deleted in the RH bill. Otherwise, the long saga of blaming the population, specifically women’s wombs, for the rising poverty in the country continues," they said in a separate statement.

Other authors of the RH bill earlier agreed to drop a provision in the bill prescribing two children as the “ideal family size" for the country. — ELR/VS, GMA News

The Manila Times analyzes the political support behind the RH Bill

An interesting and rather disturbing take on the RH bill and its political implications. I cannot vouch for its complete accuracy even though much (but not all) of it rings true for me. Caveat lector. CAP.

PNoy should not provoke conservative Catholics to revolt

BY JENNIFER R. BAS AND CHRISTINE VIRTUDES

CONTRIBUTORS

THIS is because, as Jesuit-trained Bishop Emeritus Teodoro Bacani has pointed out, the country’s bishops are all united in their opposition to the RH bill. The only other time the bishops were as united was after the February 1986 snap elections when they declared that the then newly “reelected” President Ferdinand Marcos had lost any moral authority to govern. That provided the moral basis for the 1986 EDSA uprising.

PNoy may have been led to believe that he could fight our country’s most numerous church with the support of the local communists and the foreign population controllers. The global population-control operators seem determined to throw all the money needed to pass the anti-family bill.

And the “rejectionist” and “reaffirmist” blocs of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)—meaning those who reject on the one hand, and those who reaffirm on the other, the leadership of Utrecht-based Jose Ma. Sison—are amazingly united in trying to railroad the measure, even though they may not agree on anything else.

Leading the charge is Akbayan, the party-list group which has become President Aquino’s most visible partner in running his “program-free coalition government.” Despite the fact that the communists had lost the Cold War worldwide with the collapse of the Soviet Union, they seemed to have gained unusual ascendance in the Philippines. Is this because PNoy’s father, being a shrewd politician, was once a friend of Sison and Bernabe Buscayno before they founded the Maoist CPP and the New People’s Army (NPA) in the 60s. (To be fair to Akbayan, I don't think it is accurate to call it "Communist" in the MLM [Marxist-Leninist-Maoist] sense. Akbayan is nearer to Eurocommunism -- which is considered "revisionist" and anathema by old-style Filipino Communists -- and Socialism. CAP.)

In a radio interview aired over at least 30 stations, Dr. Bullecer warned on Monday against Akbayan’s de facto takeover of Malacañang.

PNoy has named Akbayan’s Roland Llamas, a shooting buddy and (together with Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa), said to be a constant companion in partygoing, not only his secretary for political affairs but also his unvetted vice chairman of the all-sensitive National Security Council.

Questioned actions

Llamas is said to have written his own job description. He is believed to have succeeded in convincing PNoy to:

(1) Focus his anti-corruption attack on the Armed Forces of the Philippines, while sparing the new lords of corruption at the DILG and PNP, Bureau of Customs, DOTC, DBM, DOH, DSWD, etc. who have simply taken over the multi-billion peso rackets that allegedly used to be run by then First Gentleman Mike Arroyo and his boys during the past administration.

(2) Postpone the ARMM elections without any legitimate reason, so that many suspect that the true reason is that the administration cannot find a “winnable” candidate for governor.

(3) Appropriate P21.9 billion as Conditional Cash Transfer to the DSWD, purportedly as an anti-poverty measure, but in reality to serve as Akbayan’s political war chest for the 2013 senatorial elections, where Llamas close co-worker Riza Hontiveros Baraquel, DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman, Budget Secretary Butch Abad, losing vice presidential candidate Mar Roxas and some of the congressmen who would be prosecuting Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez at the Senate impeachment trial would be running for senator, mostly likely along with Kris Aquino, the president’s sister.

(4) Use the infamous congressional pork barrel to secure the impeachment by the House of Representatives of Ombudsman Gutierrez and also to make public speeches against her even after her impeachment, in an attempt to divert public attention from the administration’s dismal performance and excessive bungling.

(5) Endorse the RH bill in a big way, and attack the Catholic Church at the same time, in order to regain his sagging popularity rating and overtake Vice President Jejomar Binay by regaining the support of gays, lesbians and others of the liberal persuasions who feel betrayed.

An effort to harm PNoy?

With all these developments, one is made to wonder if there is an an effort to put the President in harm’s way. Pinapahamak ba si Presidente?

PNoy now looks just a little higher than Baraquel, who is already on You Tube campaigning for her 2013 senatorial bid in the guise of personally endorsing the RH bill.

Her campaign ad must be paid for by the foreign-funded Philippine Legislative Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD), the most active arm in Congress of the population controllers.

The authors are worried that PNoy is not giving much consideration and thinking time to his decisions and his pronouncements. He has to weigh his words more carefully and stop sounding like a manipulated puppet.

A Mindanao-based pro-life group called PNoy’s UP statement “a grandiose display of ignorance, arrogance and demagoguery without precedent in the history of Philippine Church-state relations.”

They explain as follows:

First, under Canon Law, excommunication in this case applies to Catholics who take part in an actual abortion. They are excommunicated, latae sententiae, meaning, automatically upon commission of the act, without having to be tried, sentenced and informed by any tribunal that they have been excommunicated. PNoy’s ecclesiastical advisers should know this.

Second, Aquino talks of his “obligation as leader to explain his principles.” What principles are those? Does he not confuse his biases and prejudices with ethical “principles?” There are two well-known “first principles”: the first principle of practical reason, which is to do good and avoid evil; and the first principle of speculative reason, or the principle of non-contradiction, which says something cannot be and not be at the same time.

Utter impossibility

Translation: contraception and sterilization cannot be both bad and good at the same time. The State cannot simultaneously be the constitutional protector of the life of the unborn from conception (ordained by the Constitution) and at the same time the author and executor of a program of contraception and sterilization. It can only be one or the other, not both.

Third, PNoy says he must follow his conscience. Indeed, everyone has a moral duty to follow his conscience. But people must first make sure they have a true or well-formed conscience. No one forms a true conscience by spending most of one’s time on trivial matters and fun pursuits and not seriously studying what is good and bad, what is morally right and morally wrong.

Fourth, like so many Filipinos, PNoy has been misled by his pro-RH friends into believing that the RH bill is about giving women the right to choose whether to practice contraception and sterilization or not, and if so, what kind of contraceptives or sterilization agents to use.

“This is not what the bill is all about,” says former Senator Kit Tatad, a board member of the International Right to Life Federation and the World Youth Alliance, two global pro-life organizations based in the United States.

Despite the Catholic Church’s teaching against contraception and sterilization, no law prohibits them in the Philippines, Tatad points out.

True goal of RH bill

“Everybody is free to do it, and the national contraceptive prevalence rate is already 51 percent and counting. In fact, the government has been appropriating billions for RH since the 1970s, even before they started using the term (RH), under the DOH and POPCOM. This year at least P2 billion has been so appropriated. It is, therefore, a gross deception to say this is what the bill wants to achieve,” the former senator says.

What the RH bill wants to do, he points out, is:

(1) to make fertility or birth control, even by unethical means, an essential aspect and compulsory requirement of marriage; and (2) to make the State the supplier of contraception and sterilization, despite its being constitutionally mandated to equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from the moment of conception, and to defend the right of couples to found a family according to their religious convictions.

For that reason, the RH bill is “void ab initio [void from the very beginning],” Tatad said.

“I can’t understand why not a single one of those lawyers trying to railroad this legislation seems able to read correctly the simple provisions of Article II and Article XV of the Constitution, which provide no room whatsoever for the proposed legislation. Since ignorance of the law excuses no one, even the non-lawyers should be able to see what these provisions mean,” he added.

Destruction of the family

Not only is the bill unconstitutional, Tatad said. As far as he is concerned, it seeks the destruction of the family and marriage, which is founded on the God-given gift of procreation, and the destruction of the democratic state, which recognizes the right of couples to live their married life according to their religious convictions, in favor of the totalitarian state, which seeks to control the private lives of its citizens.

“The Nazis did this to captive peoples during World War II. And the Allies condemned it as a crime against humanity at the Nuremberg war trials. That the apostate powers have since enacted into law the evil they had once condemned is no reason we should import the same evil into our system,” Tatad said.

We feel that if the President continues on this crooked path, conservative Catholics will be driven to revolt.