“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow

me” (Jn 10: 27)

Pastoral Letter explaining the decision of CBCP
to withdraw from talks With Malacañang on HB 4244

My dear people of God,

As we celebrate this Sunday the Feast of the Good Shepherd, allow me once more
to fulfill my obligation as your shepherd in the archdiocese. There remains to be one
Good Shepherd, Our Lord Jesus, who urges each of us to conform ourselves with Him, to
imitate Him and to follow Him. As your archbishop, it is my duty to help you, in the best
of my ability, to make the voice of our Lord clearer and understandable. Only when we
are able to listen and follow His voice can we call ourselves His sheep. The Gospel of
John echoes perfectly this invitation in the words of Jesus: “My sheep hear my voice, I
know them, and they follow me” (Jn 10: 14).
The much debated issue on RH Bill and its new version, House Bill 4244 known
as Responsible Parenthood bill continues to scatter the flock, pushing fellow Filipinos to
make a stand based on what they hear and watch from the news and what they can gather
from highly opinionated information. What confuses people all the more is how our
political leaders engage in double talk on what the House Bill 4244 really is intended for
and how they would like the people to see it. Recently, we learned that the Catholic
Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) withdrew from the talks arranged
by President Aquino. In this context allow me to explain the reasons why the CBCP
considered the talk destined to failure. Along the course of identifying the reasons, may
we clarify what really the Church stands for; what it sincerely believes and therefore will
fight for.

1. The HB 4244 has good provisions (building hospitals, maternal and children’s
health care, rights of the poor, education, etc.); however these are interwoven—packaged
with—bad provisions. By the term bad provisions is meant, first, those portions of the bill
which will promote and legalize contraceptives as means for population control
(contraceptive pills and gadgets which have abortifacient effects, sterilization procedures,
etc.); these are widely acknowledged as having serious adverse consequences on human
lives, especially those of the mothers, mothers-to-be and of the new human lives that are
formed at fertilization. Second, deemed bad provisions also are those that seek to
establish a mindset and a value-system that are secularist, materialistic, individualistic
and hedonistic, in the guise of development and modernity, but which in effect are hostile
to human life, the family and religion. The bill abuses the meanings of “rights”, “choice”,
“freedom” and “responsible parenthood” even as these trample on the religious and moral
exercise of conscience. Since bad provisions are present in HB 4244, the Bishops reject
the bill in its entirety.
 2. The Philippines does not need this bill. All the good provisions it contains are
already mandated in the Constitution and are already programs of the government
agencies concerned. These simply need to be implemented through aggressive and
sincere policy enforcement.
3. Since public funds will be used to promote HB 4244’s contraceptive agenda
(hidden behind the funding for construction of hospitals, maternal health programs, and
the like), the Bishops object to the passage of the bill.
4. The Philippines is a sovereign state. Government should not yield to pressures
coming from the treaty monitoring bodies of the UN such as ICPD and the CEDAW to
legislate certain rights that have not been contemplated nor intended in various
international instruments. It should not be pressured to comply with the MDG agenda,
which uses a disturbing “reproductive rights” approach in fostering its 8 goals. Moreover,
it is only a declaration.
5. In as much as President Benigno Simeon Aquino has already publicly declared
his intention to implement his own 5-point agenda on responsible parenthood (RP), the
Bishops do not see any reason to further undertake a serious study/dialogue on HB 4244
with the administration as was proposed by Pres. Aquino himself. HB 4244 and Pres.
Aquino’s 5-point RP agenda are deemed to be basically the same.

The Church continues to be consistent in its call to stand up for life, for truth and
for what it is right. We are called to pray harder than before. We cannot see yet whether
this bill will be approved in the Congress, in the Senate and how it will be implemented.
But certainly, the words of the Lord continue to be our hope and guide in these trying
times. Those who belong to the flock of the Good Shepherd listen to His voice and follow
Him. Win or lose, what clearly matters for us, is how we stood our ground and remained
faithful to Our Lord who has assured us: “I came so that they might have life and have it
more abundantly”(Jn 10: 10).
Given from the Office of the Archbishop this 11th day of May, 2011, in the year
of our Lord.

+LEONARDO Z. LEGASPI, O.P., D.D.

Archbishop of Caceres