Good Governance Dictates Not Having a Dialogue with Catholic Bishops by Clara Rita Padilla

Manila, October 3, 2010 – “Good governance dictates that PNoy should not dialogue with the Catholic bishops on the government’s policy on reproductive health. Meeting with the bishops erodes the essence of the state and its purpose in upholding secular standards, public health, and human rights. PNoy should instead meet with community women in Vitas and Permanent Housing, Tondo (Smokey Mountain) where many poor women have six to ten children, many of the mothers are anemic due to closely-spaced and multiple pregnancies some of whom even died due to pregnancy-related causes, and many children from big families stopped schooling to earn money just so they can help feed their siblings. The bishops are unjustifiably against modern contraceptives when it is the poor, the majority of the Philippine population, who would most benefit from the government’s support for increased access to modern contraceptive information, supplies, and services. Government officials meeting with the bishops is something that should not be happening in this day and age where our elected representatives in government should be upholding the constitutional guarantees of separation of church and state and non-establishment of religion. This is not what the Filipino citizens expect from PNoy and his administration,” said Attorney Clara Rita A. Padilla, Executive Director of EnGendeRights.

Atty. Padilla added, “The Catholic church must not be allowed to impose their religious beliefs on the Philippine government and the creation and implementation of laws. The government should instead actively implement the Magna Carta of Women which requires access to family planning methods and the Philippine AIDS Prevention and Control Act of 1998 (Republic Act 8504) which requires HIV/AIDS education on transmission and prevention in local communities, in schools, health facilities, and workplaces which necessarily includes education on risky sexual behavior, safe sex and the use of male and female condoms to prevent transmission. The denial of access to modern contraceptive information, supplies, and services impact poor, rural, indigenous women, women in ARMM, adolescents, men who have sex with men (MSMs) and transgenders disproportionately.”

In 2006, the Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee), the committee tasked to monitor the implementation in the Philippines of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), recommended to the Philippines to “to strengthen measures aimed at the prevention of unwanted pregnancies, including by making a comprehensive range of contraceptives more widely available and without any restriction and by increasing knowledge and awareness about family planning.”[1]

The Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESCR Committee), the committee tasked to monitor the implementation in the Philippines of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Rights (ICESCR), expressed concern in its 2008 Concluding Observations on the Philippines on the “inadequate reproductive health services and information, the low rates of contraceptive use and the difficulties in obtaining access to artificial methods of contraception, which contribute to the high rates of teenage pregnancies and maternal deaths”[2] in the country. The CESCR Committee urged it to “adopt all appropriate measures to protect the sexual and reproductive rights of women and girls, inter alia, through measures to reduce maternal and infant mortality and to facilitate access to sexual and reproductive health services, including access to family planning, and information.”[3]

In its 2009 Concluding Observations on the Philippines, the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC Committee), the committee tasked to monitor the implementation in the Philippines of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), expressed serious concern on “the inadequate reproductive health services and information, the low rates of contraceptive use (36 per cent of women relied on modern family planning methods in 2006) and the difficulties in obtaining access to artificial methods of contraception, which contribute to the high rates of teenage pregnancies and maternal deaths.”[4]

Atty. Padilla concluded, “If PNoy truly wants to be a president for the Filipino people, he should provide support to increase access to information, supplies and services to the full range of contraceptive methods. This is one way of actually making a difference in the lives of our poor, rural, indigenous women, women in ARMM, adolescents, MSMs and transgenders.”

[1] August 25, 2006 Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women Concluding Comments on the Philippines, para. 28 [2006 CEDAW Committee Concluding Comments].
[2] CESCR, Concluding Observations (2008) para. 31
[3] CESCR, Concluding Observations (2008) para. 31
[4] CRC, Concluding Observations (2009), para. 61.
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