rh petition

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Virginia Badayos
To: Fr. John Jonas Orat
Sent: Thu, November 19, 2009 4:08:02 PM
Subject: RH Petition

Please disseminate if you care. Thanks.

Please visit:
http://www.rcam.org/
for COMMENTARIES ON RH BILL 2008

To support and sign Petition against Reproductive Health Bill, log in to
http://www.petitiononline.com/xxhb5043/petition.html

To: Congress of the Philippines
We strongly oppose the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill (HB5043) for the following reasons:

1. AS EMPLOYERS, we do not want to be compelled to provide free reproductive health care services, supplies, devices and surgical procedures (including vasectomy and ligation) to our employees, and be subjected to both imprisonment and/or a fine, for every time that we fail to comply. (Section 17 states that employers shall provide for free delivery of reproductive health care services, supplies and devices to all workers more particularly women workers. (Definition of Reproductive Health and Rights Section 4, paragraph g, Section 21, Paragraph c and Section 22 on Penalties)

2. AS HEALTH CARE SERVICE PROVIDERS, we do not want to be subjected to imprisonment and/or a fine, if we fail to provide reproductive health care services such as giving information on family planning methods and providing services like ligation and vasectomy, regardless of the patient's civil status, gender, religion or age ( Section 21 on Prohibited Acts, Letter a, Paragraphs 1 to 5 and Section 22 on Penalties)

3. AS SPOUSES, we do not agree that our husband or wife can undergo a ligation or vasectomy without our consent or knowledge. (Section 21 on Prohibited Acts, Letter a, Paragraph 2)

4. AS PARENTS, we do not agree that children from age 10 to 17 should be taught their sexual rights and the means to have a satisfying and "safe" sex life as part of their school curriculum. (Section 12 on Reproductive Health Education and Section 4 Definition of Family Planning and Productive Health, Paragraph b, c and d)

5. AS CITIZENS, we do not want to be subjected to imprisonment and/or pay a fine, for expressing an opinion against any provision of this law, if such expression of opinion is interpreted as constituting "malicious disinformation" ( Section 21 on Prohibited Acts, Paragraph f and Section 22 on Penalties)

6. We also oppose other provisions such as losing our parental authority over a minor child who was raped and found pregnant (Section 21, a, no.3)

7. We also do not agree to the provision which reclassifies contraceptives as essential medicines (Section 10) and appropriating limited government funds to reproductive services instead of basic services (Section 23)

Thus, we urge you to immediately stop deliberations on the bill and stop wasting taxpayers money.


Sincerely,

quotes final

HIGHLIGHT & QUOTES FROM NSSM 200
______________________________________________________________________________

SECURITY FACTORS

p. 37 Access to “strategic and critical” materials. The location of known reserves of higher-grade ores of most minerals favors increasing dependence of all industrialized regions on imports from less developed countries. The real problems of minerals supplies lie, not in basic physical sufficiency, but in the politico-economic issues of access, terms for exploration and exploitation, and division of the benefits among producers, consumers, and host country governments.

pp. 37-38 Slower growth means more political stability. … concessions to foreign companies are likely to be expropriated or subjected to arbitrary intervention. Whether through government action, labor conflicts, sabotage, or civil disturbance, the smooth flow of needed materials will be jeopardized. Although population pressure is obviously not the only factor involved, these types of frustrations are much less likely under conditions of slow or zero population growth.

pp. 43 Control of foreign populations for US industrial & military security. Whatever may be done to guard against interruptions of supply … the U.S. economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries. That fact gives the U.S. enhanced interest in the political, economic, and social stability of the supplying countries. Wherever a lessening of population pressures through reduced birth rates can increase the prospects for such stability, population policy becomes relevant to resource supplies and to the economic interests of the United States.

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

p. 18 Priority to population control. … that the President and the Secretary of State treat the subject of population growth control as a matter of paramount importance. … a global target of replacement fertility levels by the year 2000.

p. 15 Alternative courses action … bilateral assistance to some of these countries may not be acceptable therefore, increase USAID population control budget; larger assistance to multilateral agencies

p. 17 Three areas of special emphasis:
1. Make population a part of host-country development plans;





INFO FILE S2: 94-2 2

2. Ensure wide access to contraceptive technology;
3. Implement foreign assistance projects “offering the greatest promise of increased motivation for smaller family size”.

DIPLOMATC INITIATIVES

. There is a need to encourage population policies in less developed countries (LDCs) & harness cooperation of leaders.

Four categories of recommendations, in summery:

1. MULTILATERAL AGENCIES. Use multilateral agencies instead of direct U.S. involvement; … encourage further action by LDC governments and other institutions … (cf. pp. 113-114) especially in countries where the effectiveness of diplomacy is little or the resistance is great.

2. INTEGRATION OF FAMILY PLANNING. Integrate family planning will other development concerns and diplomatic efforts to persuade leaders of the benefits to them in population planning.

3. REWARD FOR GOOD PERFORMANCE. Supplying economic aid to reward nations for good family planning performance.

4. COERCION. Applying direct coercion.

p. 96 The beliefs, ideologies and misconceptions displayed by many nations at Bucharest indicate more forcefully than ever the need for extensive education of the leaders of many governments, … Approaches [for] leaders of individual countries must be designed in the light of their current beliefs and to meet their special concerns.

pp. 113-114 Recommends that the U.S. should work with other developed countries …
… in an international collaborative effort of research in human reproduction and fertility control covering bio-medical and socio-economic factors.
The U.S. further offered to collaborate with other interested donor countries and organizations (e.g., WHO, UNFPA, World Bank, UNICEF) in other activities which could include family planning.

p. 117 Recommends congressional lobby: Thus there is need to reinforce the positive attitudes of those in Congress who presently support U.S. activity in the population field and to enlist their support in persuading others

p. 127-128 Conduits for population funding: U.S. assistance is limited by the nature of political or diplomatic relations … or by the lack of strong government interest in population reduction programs (e.g. Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mexico, Brazil). In such cases, external technical and financial assistance, if desired by the countries, would have to come from other donors and/or from private and international organizations (many of which receive contributions from AID).


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pp. 20-21 United Nations lobby recommended: The U.S. should arrange for familiarization programs at U.N. Headquarters in New York for ministers of governments, senior policy level officials and comparatively influential leaders from private life.

p. 148 World Bank linkage recommended: Involvement of the Bank in this area would open up new possibilities for collaboration.
p. 149 With a greater commitment of Bank resources and improved consultation with AID and UNFPA, a much greater dent could be made on the overall problem.

p. 121 UNFPA – co-founded by US State Dept: The U.S. Department of State and AID played an important role in establishing the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) to spearhead a multilateral effort in population as a complement to the bilateral actions of AID and other donor countries.

var. pp. Indirect approach to population control in the developing world.
p. 106 There is also the danger that some LDC leaders will see developed country pressures for family planning as a form of economic or racial imperialism; this could create quite a serious backlash.

p. 114 It is vital that the effort to develop and strengthen a commitment on the part of the LDC leaders not be seen by them as an industrialized country policy to keep their strengths down or to reserves for use by the rich countries. Development of such a perception could create a serious backlash adverse to the cause of population stability…

p. 115 The U.S. can help to minimize charges of an imperialist motivation behind its support of population activities by repeatedly asserting that such support derives from a concern with (a) the right of the individual to determine freely and responsively their number and spacing of children … and (b) fundamental social and economic development of poor countries …

p. 18 Take advantage of UN policies: Development of our worldwide political and popular commitment to population to stabilization is fundamental to any effective strategy. This requires the support and commitment of key LDC leaders. This will only take place if they clearly see the negative impact of unrestricted population growth and believe it is possible to deal with this question through government action. The U.S. should encourage LDC leaders to take the lead in advancing family planning.

p. 100 Population control is a unique aspect of U.S. foreign policy:
The proposed strategy calls for a coordinated approach to respond to the important U.S. foreign policy interest in the influence of population growth in world’s political economic and ecological system. What is unusual about population is that these foreign policies interest must have a time horizon far beyond that of utmost other objectives.

p. 128 Embassies can use intelligence capabilities to promote population control in non-cooperative LCDs: The US (Government) would, however, maintain an interest (e.g. through Embassies) in such countries population problems and programs (if any) to reduce population growth rates. Moreover, particularly in the case of high priority countries to which U.S. population assistance is now limited for one reason or another, we should be alert to opportunities for expanding our assistance effort and



INFO FILE S2: 94-2 4

for demonstrating to their leaders the consequences of rapid population growth and the benefits of actions to reduce fertility.
pp. 21-22 We must take care that our activities should not give the appearance to the LDCs of an industrialized country policy directed against the LDCs.

Integrated approach: Assist LDC leaders in integrating on population factors in national plans, particularly as they relate to help services, education, agricultural resources and development … and relate population policies and family planning programs to major sectors of development: health, nutrition, agriculture, education, social services, organized labor, women’s activities, and community development.

p. 177 Integration of family planning with popular health services as a way to eliminate suspicion, not only among country leaders, but among general public: Finally, providing integrated family planning and health services on a broad basis would help the U.S. contend with the ideological charge that the U.S. is more interested in curving the numbers of LDC people than it is in their future and well-being. While it can be argued, and argued effectively, that limitation of numbers may well be one of the most critical factor in enhancing development potential and improving the chances for well-being, we should recognize that those who argue along ideological lines have made a great deal of the fact that the U.S. contribution to the development programs and help programs has steadily shrunk, whereas funding for population program has steadily increased. While many explanation maybe brought forward to explain these trends, the fact is that they have been an ideological liability to the U.S. in its crucial evolving relationships with the LDCs.

p. 20 Coercive persuasion to secure cooperation: Methods … to straighten population planning in national development plans … (should include) consideration of population factors and population policies in all countries assistance strategies papers (CASP) and development assistance program (DAP) multi-year papers.

p. 106 Conditioning of food aid on population control performance: There is also some established precedent for taking account of family planning performance in appraisal of assistance requirements by AID and consultative groups. Since population growth is a major determinant of increases in food demand, allocation of scarce PL 40 resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food productions. In these sensitive relationship, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion.
p. 118 … Mandatory programs maybe needed and that we should be considering these possibilities now.

p. 119-120 Would food be considered an instrument of national power? Will we be forced to make choices as to whom we can reasonably assist, if so should population efforts be a criterion for such assistance?
Is the U.S. prepared to accept food rationing to help people who can’t won’t control their population growth?
… should the choice be made that the recommendations and the options given below are not adequate to meet the problem, consideration should be given to a further study and additional action in these field as outlined above.


INFO FILE S2: 94-2 5

IMPLEMENTATION OF POPULATION STRATEGY

Intro, p. 17 Change attitudes and beliefs of those who lack motivation: … priority should be given in the general aid program to selective development policies in sectors offering the greatest promise of increased motivation for smaller family size.

p. 108 Selective sectoral support for greater population decline: It is clear that the availability of contraceptive services and information is not a complete answer to the population problem. In view of the importance of socio-economic factors in determining desired family size, over-all assistance strategy should increasingly concentrate on selective policies which will contribute to population decline as well as other objectives.

p. 111 Education strategies aimed at women and youth: minimal levels of education, especially for woman and education and indoctrination of the rising generation of children regarding the desirability of smaller family size.

p. 138 Direct payment to family planning acceptors: … some controversial, but remarkably successful experiments in India in which financial incentives along with other motivational devices were used to get large numbers of men to accept vasectomies.

p. 171 Increased allocation for contraceptive research: A stepwise increase over the next 3 years to a total of about $100 million annually for fertility and contraceptive research is recommended. This is an increase of $60 million over the current $40 million expended annually by the major Federal Agencies for bio-medical research. Short-term approaches: (a.) Oral contraceptives; (b) Intra-uterine devices; (c) Ovulation prediction: (d) Sterilization; …

pp. 172-173 Injectibles and sterilization:
(e) Injectible contraceptives for woman; (f) Leuteclytic and anti-progesterone approaches; (g) Non-clinical methods: …
Testing of new methods in developing countries:
(h) Field studies. Clinical trials of new methods in use settings are essential to test their worth in developing countries and to select the best of several possible methods in a given setting.
p. 174 Long-term approaches: … will lead to better methods of fertility control for use in five to fifteen years…in particular, an injection which will be effective for specified periods of time.

pp. 182-184 Abortion: No country has reduced its population growth without resorting to abortion.
XXX
(US) AID sought through research to reduce the health risks and other complexities which arise from the illegal and unsafe forms of abortion. One result has been the development of the Menstrual Regulation Kit, a simple in expensive safe and effective means of fertility control which is easy to use under LDC conditions … other donors or organization maybe become interested in promoting with their on funds dissemination of this promising fertility control method.
XXX
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(US) AID will continue to finance training of LDC doctors in the latest techniques used in obstetrics-gynecology practice, and will not disqualify such training programs if they include pregnancy termination with in overall curriculum.
XXX
(US) AID funds may continue to be used for research relative to abortion since Congress specifically chose not to include research among the prohibited activities.
XXX
It would be unwise to restrict abortion research for the following reasons:
1. The president and ubiquitous nature of abortion.
2. Widespread lack of safe abortion techniques.
3. Restriction of research on abortifacient drugs and devices would:
a. Possibly eliminate further development of the IUD.
b. Prevent development of drugs which have other beneficial uses …

p. 117 Maximize use of mass communications: Beyond seeking to reach and influence national leaders, improved worldwide support for population-related efforts should be sought through increased emphasis on mess media and other population education and motivation programs by the UN, USIA and USAID. We should give higher priorities in our information programs worldwide for this area and consider the expansion of collaborative arrangements with multilateral institutions in population education programs. (NB: This is already a reality today, through global satellite broadcasting.)
p. 186 The priority need might lie in the utilization of this technology, particularly with large and illiterate rural populations. … Yet AID’s work suggests that radio, posters, printed material, and various types of personal contacts by health/family planning workers tend to be more cost-effective than television except in those areas (generally urban) where a TV system is already in place which reaches more than just the middle and upper classes … Mass media can effectively complement necessary inter-personal communications.
p. 187 AID believes that the best bet in media strategy is to encourage intensive use of media already available, or available at relatively low cost.



Ver. 26-I-94

sophism

Masterpiece of Sophism

Written by Tony F. Roxas Monday, 30 November 2009 18:16

WORDS are not just tools of ordinary day-¬to-¬day communication—they can be powerful weapons of persuasion, especially when packaged neatly and alluringly in well-camouflaged sophisms. This article aims to pinpoint, expose and refute some of those concealed underlying sophisms in the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) Bill 5043.
In doing so, much hope rests on the likelihood that the majority of RH bill supporters, both in and out of Congress, are only honestly mistaken about the wisdom and necessity of the bill. It is for them and for those who oppose this bill that this piece is primarily intended. As for the minority of RH bill supporters who persist in their untenable position, it is hoped that there may be some window left for the light of objective truth to enter.
Among the key arguments on which the RH and Sex Education bills in the Philippines are anchored are the following:
1) RH education is a human right.
2) RH education is one way to help alleviate poverty.
3) RH education gives women the right to exercise their freedom of informed choice, an important human right.
Let us tackle them one by one.
RH education actually violates human rights
Setting the stage for the legalization of abortion, or in conjunction with it, as can be inferred from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent statement to the US Congress on the Obama administration’s interpretation of the term “Reproductive Health”—that it includes women’s reproductive rights to “safe” abortion, reproductive-health education is being forced into the educational curricula of developing countries, with the usual “human rights” shield being cited as grounds for its necessity and urgency.
But just how logically valid really is this RH education claim of being a human right? Foreign and local proponents of this bill overlook, fail or refuse to see and acknowledge the inherent relationships of different human rights to one another. In so doing, all sorts of highly destructive social consequences follow.
It is an axiomatic truth that human rights exist only because human life exists! If human life did not exist, there would be no human rights, not even a single right to assert, protect, speak or even think of.
Obviously, if all the human rights were gathered and arranged in their order of importance, the right to life would be the highest of all because, as already said, it is the reality of human life that makes all other rights exist. For this reason, the right to life is the principal and all¬encompassing right.
All other lesser rights exist only for the exclusive purpose of supporting the right to life, enriching it, and protecting and strengthening it. Hence, we have man’s basic right to food security because it supports life, his right to education because it enriches his rational life with knowledge and basic skills needed for total human development, and his right to the laws of the land that protect and strengthen the right to life.
Furthermore, any so¬-called rights that do the very opposite—weakening and not supporting the right to life; corrupting and poisoning the tender minds of children with a contraceptive culture and not enriching their rational life; and endangering or destroying the right to life and not protecting and strengthening it—are rights only in name but not in reality. Such “rights” do not have any moral existence!
Therefore, any and all provisions of RH Bill 5043 and all similar provisions found in all bills on sex education and all other related bills containing such nonexistent rights, because they are naturally unjust per se, are absolutely null and void ab initio, and can never be enacted validly into any just law!
Essential and universal cause of poverty
Foreign interests that insist and strive hard to aggressively control our population growth most often claim that an increase in family size is a cause of poverty. Now, if it is true that a family becomes poor or poorer precisely because of an increase in family size, then it would follow that all families that increase in family size will always end up poor or poorer in the end. But this is clearly not the case because while it is true that some families end up poor or poorer, there are also some that end up even richer in the end, while there are also some that end up about the same as when they began. Therefore, it is not true that an increase in family size is per se a cause of poverty.
In fact, no less than two Nobel Laureates in Economics, Gary Backer and Simon Kuznets, and Resource Economist Julian Simon say the same thing. They emphasize that there is no scientific evidence proving that an increase in family size is a cause of poverty.
What then is the real cause of poverty? The essential, immediate, direct and universal cause of poverty is non¬productivity or insufficient productivity!
Consequently, if any foreign or local interests sincerely want to help solve our poverty problems, they can best do so by helping provide skills, training, education and livelihood projects which will surely uplift the economic conditions of the poor, and not insist on flooding poor families with pills and condoms which only result in the end in damage to the mother’s health and/or the slaying of the unborn. To paraphrase what one writer once wisely said, productivity, not pills, condoms or abortions, will end poverty!

RH Bill 5043 denies women the right to freedom of choice
Let’s face it. “Freedom of choice” is a catch phrase these days that is frequently invoked to rationalize even the most rapacious, unnatural and indefensible agendas.
The economic pundits clearly responsible for the global financial meltdown that’s adversely affecting countries around the world and millions and millions of people claim that they were only exercising their “freedom of choice” to engage in business.
Also, all the billions of inhabitants of this planet for the past 100 years or so exercised their freedom of choice to use petroleum¬-based products as their main source of energy and fuel. Did our freedom of choice make right the now-almost irreversible damage we have inflicted on our ecology? Obviously not!
Clearly, there is more to the freedom of choice than just exercising it. One must exercise this right responsibly. And this can be attained only if the meaning of freedom is clearly understood by the one suggesting and by the one exercising it.
Freedom has a twofold meaning, one negative and the other positive. The negative meaning of freedom is the absence of restraint. One is not free to swim, for instance, if his hands and feet are tied or bound. To be free to swim, his hands and feet should be untied. Or, he must have the absence of restraint on him, i.e., he must have negative freedom.
However, even if his hands and feet are not tied, if he does not know how to swim, he still is not free to swim. To be truly free, he must have the skill or know¬-how of swimming. In short, he must have positive freedom, the presence of a skill or ability to do something. Only then can one be truly free to swim. True freedom, therefore, means having both positive freedom and negative freedom.
In regard to the exercise of the freedom of choice, before one insists on freedom from restraint to exercise this right of negative freedom, one must recognize that there is a prior right and duty to learn how to choose correctly (positive freedom). Otherwise, freedom will be misused, as white-collar criminals of Wall Street have destroyed our world economy, and petro¬chemical firms and the billions of inhabitants of this planet who believed them have destroyed our ecology.
RH Bill 5043 promotes an irresponsible exercise of the freedom of choice: Negative freedom without positive freedom
Since the right to safety and the preservation of good health is an essential natural and fundamental human right second only to the right to life, no man-made laws or institutions can legitimately nullify, suspend, replace or violate it any more than can all the nations of the world pass laws that will eliminate or repeal the law of gravity!
Hence, a woman who wants to space childbirths is entitled by natural right to methods of child spacing that are guaranteed absolutely safe, not just “advertised” as safe by supposed medical experts in the service of pharmaceutical firms.
But since only natural family-planning methods are guaranteed for their safety, then only such methods may be offered and taught to them, whether by the government, foreign-funded institutions, or private individuals and groups. The Billings Ovulation Method with its proven 99.98-percent success rate even for irregular fertility cycles is one such method.
In promoting the use of artificial contraceptives, RH Bill 5043 fails or refuses to divulge to possible users the dangers to life and health such contraceptives bring!
Fortunately, of the abundant scientific evidence showing the dangers to life and health through the use of contraceptives, no less than Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Heath, the highest medical authority promoting the population-control program worldwide, asserts this:
“It is, therefore, concluded that risk of adenomatous carcinomas of the cervix is increased in women who use oral contraceptives, that this risk is greatest in long-term users and users of high-progestin potency products, and that the enhanced risk diminishes with the passage of time after cessation of use.” (David B. Thomas, Roberts M. Ray, and the World Health Organization Study of Neoplasia and Steroid Contraceptives; Oral Contraceptives and Invasive Adenocarcinomas and Adenosquamous Carcinomas of the Uterine Cervix, American Journal of Epidemiology, Vol. 144, No. 3, page 288, Copyright 1996 by the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health).
And yet the RH bill, with the support of its foreign sponsors and local counterparts, insists on letting our female population of reproductive age use these dangerous and unsafe birth-control methods, defying comprehension and scuttling all sense of humaneness.
In conclusion, RH Bill 5043 denies Filipino women the right to exercise authentic freedom of choice because it only wants them to exercise negative freedom, the absence of restraint, without the corresponding positive freedom, the ability to choose correctly, because the truth about the dangers these contraceptives bring to the life and health of possible users is hidden from them.
In short, this RH bill wants our Filipino women to exercise the “freedom” of misinformed choice!
Conclusion
In the light of the foregoing arguments, all three grounds for the so-called necessity and urgency of the RH bill have been shown to be flawed, invalid and irrelevant to its intended conclusion. The only inescapable course of action left then is to reject and disapprove this controversial bill because the grounds it cites in no way justify its existence.
And to put things finally in the right perspective, the prolife cause is not a unique or exclusive concern of the Roman Catholic faith. It is a cause deeply rooted in natural law, and is, therefore, the concern of all men of goodwill who uphold, protect and defend the sanctity of human life and the dignity of the human person, whether believers or not, in the existence of God or in the afterlife. It is the same natural moral law whose binding effect on the conscience of mankind was invoked and strongly enforced in the historic trials of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg after World War II for the mass extermination of Jews, all crimes against humanity. And it is the same natural law that is the moral bedrock upon which the United Nations organization was founded. Hence, its universal and pervasive binding effect on the conscience of mankind as it is the ultimate source of natural moral rights, now called human rights, and the guarantor and protector of the Right to Life.

aide memoire

Aide Memoire on RH Legislation
The arguments of the Catholic Church against the RH can be summarized in the following points:
1. This legislation promotes contraception, a moral evil that the Catholic Church condemns. The marital act when contracepted falsifies the expression of love between couples by separating its unitive from its procreative aspect.
2. Interpellation on HB 5043 has revealed that the bills (at both houses) were largely drafted by Philippine Legislative Committee on Population and Development, a foreign funded NGO. Since contraception has never been banned in the Philippines this legislation is pushing open a door that has been wide open for the past 50 years. This raises two basic issues:
a. The false promises of family planning: after 50 years it has not made any significant improvements in the poverty situation of our country. Documentation on family planning programs world-wide has unearthed a lot of evidence connecting these programs to several ideologies—the racist ideology of the American Eugenics Society, the feminist ideology which wants to women to enjoy sex free of the burdens of child-bearing as well as the economic imperialism of the US that looks at the population growth of third world countries as a threat to their economic security. All these ideologies hide behind the high-sounding altruistic motive of pushing family planning as a solution to the poverty problem. Unfortunately this same poverty argument is also popular among politicians for another reason: it provides an easy reason to cover-up for their mistakes and failures and above all for the misuse of funds in graft and corruption.
b. The family planning program has traditionally been financed by private foreign aid (International Planned Parenthood) going to private NGOs (Family Planning Program of the Philippines and bilateral and multilateral aid (USAID, UNFPA). This legislation now empowers the Philippine Govt. to spend tax money on family planning. Hence family planning does not need an enabling act; ergo the purpose of the legislation is to transfer the funding of family planning to the Philippine Govt. This would impinge on the freedom of religion of the 80% Catholic population who will then be paying with their tax money for a program that violates their freedom of conscience.
3. Both House and Senate versions promote value free sex education that violates the constitutional rights of the parents to educate their children. A value-free sex education that is exclusively limited to the biological dimension of the conjugal act and omits its spiritual, religious and moral dimensions will give rise to promiscuity among young people and eventually destroy our society.
4. Although the proposed legislation avows that it does not support legalization of abortion the UN language it uses in defining Reproductive Health provides an escape hatch for future legislation to decriminalize abortion. The inclusion of mental and social well-being UN definition of Reproductive Health together with the insistence that woman should have equal access to a safe and satisfying sexual life has been used to justify not only contraception but also abortion as a remedy to failed contraception. This is an approach that the UN has used to successfully achieve the legalization of abortion in many Catholic countries.
5. The RH legislation also contains provisions that violate the freedom of religion of Catholic health workers and public officials who are forced to provide family planning services to whoever asks for it; likewise of Catholic employers forcing them to provide family planning services to their employees, hence forcing them to be accomplices in something that is against their religion.
6. The items listed in n. 5 above and the provision of information against family planning are prohibited acts that will be penalized by imprisonment or fine. The prohibition of talking against the family planning program under pain of imprisonment or payment of a fine is against the constitutional freedom of speech which every Filipino should enjoy.
7. The UN generally misleads many nations by focusing on population growth (for the Philippines this is 1.97% in 2005) and fertility (for the Philippines this is now down to 2.89 children per woman—too close to the 2.1 replacement rate). What they omit mentioning is that many countries of the world are now imploding (negative population growth rate (Germany, Italy, Spain, etc.). Due to a rapid fall in fertility and rise in life expectancy many of these countries are aging fast even as their labor force is shrinking. The Philippines is a striking exception to this demographic phenomenon. The main reason for this is our continuing rejection of family planning, an edge that we will certainly loose if the RH legislation passes.

Natural law dictates the disappearance of species that do not reproduce. Human beings are not exempted from this law. Hence, from a broader perspective a sincere seeker for the truth will see in the demographic implosion of the countries which have embraced anti-life attitudes the evident working of this natural law.

the right to lead

Excerpt from:
The Right to Lead,
by John Maxwell

WHAT GIVES A MAN OR WOMAN THE RIGHT TO LEAD?

It certainly isn't gained by election or appointment. Having position, title, rank, or degrees doesn't qualify anyone to lead other people. And the ability doesn't come automatically from age or experience, either. No, it would be accurate to say that no one can be given the right to lead. The right to lead can only be earned. And that takes time.




The Kind of Leader Others Want to Follow




The key to becoming an effective leader is not to focus on making other people follow, but on making yourself the kind of person they want to follow. You must become someone others can trust to take them where they want to go. As you prepare yourself to become a better leader, use the following guidelines to help you grow:

1.Let go of your ego.
The truly great leaders are not in leadership for personal gain. They lead in order to serve other people. Perhaps that is why Lawrence D. Bell remarked, "Show me a man who cannot bother to do little things, and I'll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do big things."

2.Become a good follower first.
Rare is the effective leader who didn't learn to become a good follower first. That is why a leadership institution such as the United States Military Academy teaches its officers to become effective followers first - and why West Point has produced more leaders than the Harvard Business School.

3.Build positive relationships.
Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. That means it is by nature relational. Today's generation of leaders seem particularly aware of this because title and position mean so little to them. They know intuitively that people go along with people they get along with.

4.Work with excellence.
No one respects and follows mediocrity. Leaders who earn the right to lead give their all to what they do. They bring into play not only their skills and talents, but also great passion and hard work. They perform on the highest level of which they are capable.

5.Rely on discipline, not emotion.
Leadership is often easy during the good times. It's when everything seems to be against you - when you're out of energy, and you don't want to lead - that you earn your place as a leader. During every season of life, leaders face crucial moments when they must choose between gearing up or giving up. To make it through those times, rely on the rock of discipline, not the shifting sand of emotion.

6.Make adding value your goal.
When you look at the leaders whose names are revered long after they have finished leading, you find that they were men and women who helped people to live better lives and reach their potential. That is the highest calling of leadership - and its highest value.

7.Give your power away.
One of the ironies of leadership is that you become a better leader by sharing whatever power you have, not by saving it all for yourself. You're meant to be a river, not a reservoir. If you use your power to empower others, your leadership will extend far beyond your grasp.