CBCP Family Life Commission Launches Project ARMADA

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines through its Episcopal Commission on Family Life (ECFL) launched “Project ARMADA” as part of its campaign to oppose House Bill 4110, or the Reproductive Heath Care Act, which is set for deliberation on Oct. 7 in the executive session of the Committee on Health of the Lower House.

ARMADA, or the Army of Mary Against Death and Abortion, was launched on Oct. 3 at the CBCP in Intramuros, Manila, with a press conference presided by Archbishop Paciano Aniceto of San Fernando, Pampanga, ECFL chairman.

HB 4110, filed mainly by Rep. Bellaflor Angara Castillo of Aurora Province and co-sponsored by some 52 other congressmen, is seen to be gaining headway to the plenary level. It has been noted that with the campaign takeoff for the May 2004 elections already fast approaching and occupying the attention of most legislators, the bill’s proponents are going all-out in a last-ditch effort to steer it past the Lower House before yearend lest the bill be sidelined by the election campaign.

According to legislative procedure, any bill pending or not passed into law at the conclusion of the three-year term of the incumbent members of the Lower House automatically gets written off and, if refiled in the next congress, reverts to phase zero.

Telly Farolan Somera, ECFL consultant, said ARMADA intends to match the timing and is set to launch concerted campaigns to thwart any further progress of the bill.

Archbishop Aniceto also warned that the Church would not relent on its effort even as far as pressing President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to use her veto power should the bill reach her level.

In her State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA) at the July 28 opening of the third regular session of the 12th Congress, President Arroyo declared her strong pro-life stance. “Pro-life pa rin ako. I will veto any bill that will try to smuggle in abortion,” the President declared in her address.

The Church’s main objection to the present bill, ARMADA declared, zeroes in on its abortifacient content which it said contravenes the constitutional guarantee that the State “recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect the family as a basic autonomous social institution” and “shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of unborn from conception.”

ARMADA described HB 4110 as anti-women, anti-children, anti-family, anti-poor, and anti-society “because it indirectly seeks the legalization of abortion which is presently prohibited under the laws of the land, by concealing the real meaning of ‘reproductive health.’”

“Reproductive health”

ARMADA pointed out that HB 4110 liberally and ostensibly uses the “misleading” term “reproductive heath” which it said is of foreign origin and thus carries the meaning assigned to it by its original authors.

ARMADA’s battery of technical spokespersons, in reference to a resolution earlier passed by CBCP’s Office on Women and using extrinsic aids presented the bill’s “pernicious implications, demystified the evil camouflaged in the term reproductive health.”

The resolution’s signatories include Sr. Pilar Verzosa, RGS, director of Pro-Life Philippines and lawyer, Mia Meñez-Zafra, who both presented a paper during the ARMADA’s launching. Copies of the resolution have been sent to President Arroyo and all senators and congressmen.

“According to the World Health Organization,” the resolution explained, “reproductive health implies that people are able to have responsible, satisfying and safe sex life and they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how to do so. Implicit in this last condition are the right of men and women to be informed of and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of fertility regulation of their choice and the right access to appropriate health care services that will enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth and provide couples with the best chance of having healthy infant.”

The resolution further stated, “On the other hand, the WHO defined ‘fertility regulation’ as the process by which couples regulate their fertility and stated that the methods that can be used for the purpose include ‘interrupting unwanted pregnancies.’ It is clear therefore that ‘reproductive health’ according to WHO definitions include abortion.”

Additionally, ARMADA identified Section 6 of the bill, which mandates the creation of a Reproductive Health Management Council (RHMC), as mirroring a manifest legislative intent to decriminalize abortion. Among the functions and responsibilities of the council, as defined under the said section, is to “review national and local laws and policies that infringe on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of all individuals and couples and recommend to appropriate executive and/or legislative bodies the amendment and/or repeal of such laws and policies.”

ARMADA fears that if found at variance with this provision and thereby repealed or amended, any existing legal safeguard to the sanctity of the family will lose executory sway, resulting in the destruction or debasement of the family as an inviolate institution.

Penalties to parents

ARMADA’s objections to the bill also include its provisions on “Prohibited Acts “ (Section 7) and “Penalties” (Section 8).

ARMADA explained that if passed into law, HB 4110 will imprison or impose fines on parents, teachers, school administrators, or concerned citizens who restrict the sexual rights of their children or prohibit the distribution of explicit sexual instruction materials and condoms, pills or “reproductive health” paraphernalia given to their children in school.

Specifically, under the bill’s Section 7, among the acts prohibited and thereby punishable include “restrictions on the dissemination of information regarding family planning including requirements for third party authorizations in voluntary sterilizations and other voluntary sexual and reproductive health procedures; and refusal to extend quality health care and information on the basis of marital status, gender or sexual orientation, age, religion and nature of work.”

Section 8, on the other hand, provides that “any act or policy that may violate against the exercise of one’s sexual and reproductive rights and/or violate any provision of this Act is punishable by imprisonment of one month to six months and/or a fine of Twenty Thousand Pesos (P20,000.00).”

Immediate actions

To dramatize its protests against the bill, ARMADA has called on all parishes and other concerned groups and individuals to join hands in fighting for a pro-life cause.

Archbishop Aniceto particularly appealed “to our friends in media” to be supportive of the cause by articulating the apparent danger of the assailed measure.

Immediate lineup of activities along the campaign includes the following: