We Urge the Next President to Support the Passage of the RH Bill into Law by Clara Rita A. Padilla

Quezon City, March 6, 2010 –“The public pronouncements of presidentiables saying either that they do not support the RH bill or that they will respect the informed choice of couples without committing the budget to provide wide access to reproductive health information, supplies, and services undermines the work of women’s rights and reproductive rights advocates. We are the ones who have witnessed the dismal state of women’s reproductive health in the poor communities in Tondo and elsewhere in the Philippines. The bishops are detached from the realities that poor women face,” Attorney Clara Rita A. Padilla, Executive Director of EnGendeRights,

Atty. Padilla added, “The poor women, adolescent women, rural and indigenous women, and women from ARMM are the ones most affected by the lack of a reproductive health care policy. They are the ones who have the most unintended pregnancies and closely-spaced pregnancies. Their births are commonly unattended by trained health professionals putting their health and lives at risk. What will happen to the reproductive health needs of adolescent women and the poor women in communities, rural areas, indigenous women and women in ARMM? Claiming to end poverty and provide for the needs of Filipinos, will the next president turn a blind eye and not provide for the proper budget to provide wide access to reproductive health information, supplies, and services simply because such stance would take the ire of the CBCP?”

“The pronouncements of the presidentiables show that they are letting the CBCP interfere with affairs of the state in contravention with our constitutional guarantees on separation of church and state and non-establishment of religion. From these pronouncements, it would show that the presidentiables are disregarding the dire maternal health situation in the Philippines where there are 11 women dying every day due to pregnancy and childbirth-related causes, almost half of all pregnancies are unintended and one-third of these unintended pregnancies end in abortion,” Atty. Padilla added.

Atty. Padilla, continued, “In the Philippines, where we have one of the strictest abortion policies in the world and women do not have access to safe and legal abortion, there are about 80,000 women hospitalized every year and about 800 women who die every year due to lack of access to safe and legal abortion. And yet, we have presidentiables who proudly say that they don’t support the RH bill when this is the bill that can reduce the need for abortion.”

“We cannot have a president who is afraid of the CBCP. We need a president who will make a firm stand to pass the RH bill into law. It has been over eight years since the first RH bill has been filed in Congress. The failure to pass the RH bill has been detrimental to the health and lives of Filipinos especially women and children,” Atty. Padilla stressed.

“I sincerely hope that the presidentiables will make a clear stand on not just respecting the rights of individuals and couples to informed choice. They must clearly make a stance that they will earmark funds to provide wide access to modern contraceptives and reproductive health care services. It is very easy for middle class and upper class women to pay for their own contraceptives and other reproductive health care services but this is not the case for poor women in the communities, rural areas, and in the ARMM. For poor women, they are unable to buy contraceptives, they cannot afford to pay for anti-biotics to treat their reproductive tract infection for them to be able to have an IUD inserted, they cannot afford to pay for a P2,500 ligation procedure even when they already have four or more children, they are unable to get pre-natal and post-natal check ups because they have to tend to the needs of their several children at home nor they can pay for a simple PAP smear procedure. We need the necessary budgetary allocation to increase access to reproductive health care information and services,” Atty. Padilla explained.

“Unlike the CBCP whose guidelines for the 2010 elections has the sole criterion of not voting for a candidate who supports the RH bill which seemed to have threatened presidentiables whose survival instincts seemed to have dominated their hierarchy of values, women’s rights and reproductive rights advocates cite realities, actual statistics, medical and scientific findings, and international human rights standards, and we appeal to reason and compassion. This coming election, I urge voters to make a stand and vote for candidates who clearly have a stand to provide wide access to reproductive health information, supplies, and services. Your vote will spell the difference for many women’s lives,” Atty. Padilla concluded.***