Reproductive Health Bill

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Intrauterine device (IUD): The Reproductive Health Bill provides for universal distribution of family planning devices, and its enforcement. The Reproductive Health bills, popularly known as the RH Bill, are Philippine bills aiming to guarantee universal access to methods and information on birth control and maternal care. The bills have become the center of a contentious national debate. There are presently two bills with the same goals: House Bill No. 4244 or An Act Providing for a Comprehensive Policy on Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health, and Population and Development, and For Other Purposes introduced by Albay 1st district Representative Edcel Lagman, and Senate Bill No. 2378 or An Act Providing For a National Policy on Reproductive Health and Population and Development introduced by Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago. While there is general agreement about its provisions on maternal and child health, there is great debate on its key proposal that the Filipino taxpayer and the private sector will fund and undertake widespread distribution of family planning devices such as birth control pills (BCPs) and IUDs, as the government continues to disseminate information on their use through all health care centers. Private companies and the public and private elementary and secondary school system will be required to participate in this information and product dissemination as a way of controlling the population of the Philippines.[1] The bill is highly divisive, with experts, academics, religious institutions, and major political figures both supporting and opposing it, often criticizing the government and each other in the process. The issue is so divisive that at one point, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines threatened to excommunicate the President, Benigno Aquino III if he supported the bill.

Background
The first time the Reproductive Health Bill was proposed was in 1998. During the present 15th Congress, the RH Bills filed are those authored by (1) House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman of Albay, HB 96; (2) Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin, HB 101, (3) Akbayan Representatives Kaka Bag-ao & Walden Bello; HB 513, (4) Muntinlupa Representative Rodolfo Biazon, HB 1160, (5) Iloilo Representative Augusto Syjuco, HB 1520, (6) Gabriela Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan. In the Senate, Sen. Michael Angelo F. Perolina has filed her own version of the RH bill which, she says, will be part of the countrys commitment to international covenants. On January 31, 2011, the House of Representatives Committee on Population and Family Relations voted to consolidate all House versions of the bill, which is entitled An Act Providing for a Comprehensive Policy on Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population Development and for Other Purposes.[2][3]
[edit] Stated purpose

One of the main concerns of the bill, according to the Explanatory Note, is that the population of the Philippines makes it the 12th most populous nation in the world today, that the Filipino womens fertility rate is at the upper bracket of 206 countries. It states that studies and surveys show that the Filipinos are responsive to having smaller-sized families through free choice of family planning methods. It also refers to studies which show that rapid population growth exacerbates poverty while poverty spawns rapid population growth. And so it aims for improved quality of life through a consistent and coherent national population policy.
[edit] History

According to the Senate Policy Brief titled Promoting Reproductive Health, the history of reproductive health in the Philippines dates back to 1967 when leaders of 12 countries including the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos signed the Declaration on Population.[4][5] The Philippines agreed that the population problem be considered as the principal element for long-term economic development. Thus, the Population Commission (Popcom) was created to push for a lower family size norm and provide information and services to lower fertility rates.[1] Starting 1967, the USAID started shouldering 80% of the total family planning commodities (contraceptives) of the country, which amounted to US$ 3 Million annually.[1]

US National Security Memorandum: paramount importance of world population control through programs of UN and USAID.

In 1975, the United States adopted as its policy the National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM200). The policy gives "paramount importance" to population control measures and the promotion of contraception among 13 populous countries, including the Philippines to control rapid population growth which they deem to be inimical to the socio-political and economic growth of these countries and to the national interests of the United States, since the "U.S. economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad", and these countries can produce destabilizing opposition forces against the United States.[6] It recommends the US leadership to "influence national leaders" and that "improved world-wide support for population-related efforts should be sought through increased emphasis on mass media and other population education and motivation programs by the U.N., USIA, and USAID."[6] Different presidents had different points of emphasis. President Marcos pushed for a systematic distribution of contraceptives all over the country, a policy that was called "coercive," by its leading administrator.[5] The Cory Aquino administration focused on giving couples the right to have the number of children they prefer, while the Ramos presidency shifted from population control to population management. Estrada used mixed methods of reducing fertility rates, while Arroyo focused on mainstreaming natural family planning, while stating that contraceptives are openly sold in the country.[1] In 1989, the Philippine Legislators Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD) was established, "dedicated to the formulation of viable public policies requiring legislation on population management and socio-economic development." In 2000, the Philippines signed the Millennium Declaration and committed to attain the MDG goals by 2015, including promoting gender equality and health. In 2003, USAID started its phase out of a 33 year old program by which free contraceptives where given to the country. Aid recipients such as the Philippines faced the challenge to fund its own contraception program.[1] In 2004, the Department of Health introduced the Philippines Contraceptive Self-Reliance Strategy, arranging for the replacement of these donations with domestically provided contraceptives.[1] In August 2010, the government announced a collaborative work with the USAID in implementing a comprehensive marketing and communications strategy in favor of family planning called "May Plano Ako" (I Have a Plan).

[edit] Key definitions

House Bills 101 and 513, and Senate Bill 2378 define the term "reproductive health care" as follows: Reproductive Health Care - refers to the state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes. This implies that people are able to have a satisfying and safe sex life, that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so, provided that these are not against the law. This further implies that

women and men attain equal relationships in matters related to sexual relations and reproduction.[7] House Bill 96 replaces "have a satisfying and safe sex life" with "enjoy responsible and safe sex" but is otherwise identical in its definition. House Bill 1160 omits "a satisfying and" but is otherwise identical. House Bill 3387 omits the word "complete" before physical, and replaces "attain" with "are afforded," but is otherwise identical.[7] Reproductive Rights are defined by House Bills 101, 513, 1160, 3387, and Senate Bill 2378 as follows: the rights of individuals and couples, to decide freely and responsibly whether or not to have children; the number, spacing and timing of their children; to make other decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence; to have the information and means to do so; and to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health.[7] House Bill 96 replaces "other decisions" with "allied decisions," but is otherwise identical.[7] The opposition says that by supporting such definitions, the country will guarantee this same right of having "a satisfying and safe sex life" and the freedom of decision to unmarried children and teenagers, since they are "people" and "individuals." They argue that this will lead to promiscuity among the young.[8] They say that the terminology is part of deceptive "verbal engineering" since RH is not in favor of reproduction, and contraceptives are not healthy, but RH is presented as something good.[citation needed]

[edit] Bill content

[edit] Sections

Philippine Population Density Map. Darker areas mean more population.

The basic content of the Consolidated Reproductive Health Bill is divided into the following sections.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. Title Declaration of Policy Guiding Principles Definition of Terms Midwives for Skilled Attendance Emergency Obstetric Care Access to Family Planning Maternal and Newborn Health Care in Crisis Situations Maternal Death Review Family Planning Supplies as Essential Medicines Procurement and Distribution of Family Planning Supplies Integration of Family Planning and Responsible Parenthood Component in Anti-Poverty Programs Roles of Local Government in Family Planning Programs Benefits for Serious and Life-Threatening Reproductive Health Conditions Mobile Health Care Service Mandatory Age-Appropriate Reproductive Health and Sexuality Education Additional Duty of the Local Population Officer Certificate of Compliance Capability Building of Barangay Health Workers Ideal Family Size Employers Responsibilities Pro Bono Services for Indigent Women Sexual And Reproductive Health Programs For Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) Right to Reproductive Health Care Information Implementing Mechanisms Reporting Requirements Congressional Oversight Committee Prohibited Acts Penalties Appropriations Implementing Rules and Regulations Separability Clause Repealing Clause Effectivity

[edit] Summary of major provisions

The bill mandates the government to promote, without bias, all effective natural and modern methods of family planning that are medically safe and legal.[3] Although abortion is recognized as illegal and punishable by law, the bill states that the government shall ensure that all women needing care for post-abortion complications shall be treated and counseled in a humane, non-judgmental and compassionate manner.[3]

The bill calls for a multi-dimensional approach integrates a component of family planning and responsible parenthood into all government anti-poverty programs.[3] Under the bill, age-appropriate reproductive health and sexuality education is required from grade five to fourth year high school using life-skills and other approaches.[3] The bill also mandates the Department of Labor and Employment to guarantee the reproductive health rights of its female employees. Companies with less than 200 workers are required to enter into partnership with health care providers in their area for the delivery of reproductive health services.[3] Employers are obliged to monitor pregnant working employees among their workforce and ensure they are provided paid half-day prenatal medical leaves for each month of the pregnancy period that they are employed.[3] The national government and local governments will ensure the availability of reproductive health care services, including family planning and prenatal care.[3] Any person or public official who prohibits or restricts the delivery of legal and medically safe reproductive health care services will be meted penalty by imprisonment or a fine.[3]

[edit] Summary of support and criticism

Proponents argue: (1) Economic studies, especially the experience in Asia,[9] show that rapid population growth and high fertility rates, especially among the poor, exacerbate poverty and make it harder for the government to address it.[10][11] (2) Empirical studies show that poverty incidence is higher among big families.[10][12] Smaller families and wider birth intervals could allow families to invest more in each childs education, health, nutrition and eventually reduce poverty and hunger at the household level.[1][9][10] (3) Ten to eleven maternal deaths daily could be reduced if they had access to basic healthcare and essential minerals like iron and calcium, according to the DOH; (4) Studies show that 44% of the pregnancies in the poorest quintile are unanticipated, and among the poorest women who would like to avoid pregnancy, at least 41% do not use any contraceptive method because of lack of information or access.[9][10] and "Among the poorest families, 22% of married women of reproductive age express a desire to avoid pregnancies but are still not using any family planning method,"[9] (5) use of contraception, which the World Health Organization has listed as essential medicines,[13][14] will lower the rate of abortions as it has done in other parts of the world, according to the Guttmacher Institute.[15](6) An SWS survey of 2008 showed that 71% of the respondents are in favor of the bill,[16] (7) at the heart of the bill is the free choice given to people on the use of reproductive health, enabling the people, especially the poor to have the number of children they want and can care for. Opponents of the bill argue that: (1) "The world's leading scientific experts" have resolved the issues related to the bill and show that the "RH Bill is based on wrong economics" as the 2003 Rand Corporation study shows that "there is little cross-country evidence that population growth impedes or promotes economic growth".[17][18] (2) The bill takes away limited government funds

from treating many high priority medical and food needs and transfers them to fund harmful and deadly devices.[19] The latest studies in scientific journals and organizations show that the ordinary birth control pill,[20] and the IUD[21] are abortifacient to fertilized eggs: they kill young human embryos, who as such are human beings equally worthy of respect,[22] making the bill unconstitutional.[23][24] (3) Leading secular social scientists like Nobel prize winner, George Akerlof and US National Defense Consultant, Lionel Tiger, have shown empirical evidence that contraceptives have deleterious social effects (abortion, premarital sex, female impoverishment, fatherless children, teenage pregnancies, and poverty).[25][26] Harvard Director Edward Green concluded that the "best studies" show that more condoms promote the spread of AIDS.[27] Combined estrogen-progestogen oral contraceptives (the most common type prescribed globally) are carcinogenic,[28][29] and confers other serious health risks.[30][31] The increased usage of contraceptives, which implies that some babies are unwanted, will eventually lead to more abortion.[23](4) People's freedom to access contraceptives is not restricted by any opposing law, being available in family planning NGOs, stores, etc. The country is not a welfare state: taxpayer's money should not be used for personal practices that are harmful and immoral; it can be used to inform people of the harm of BCPs. (5) A 2009 survey showed that 92% rejected the bill when informed of its detailed provisions and penalties.[32] (6) The penal provisions constitute a violation of free choice and conscience, and establishes religious persecution.[33] President Aquino stated he was not an author of the bill. He also stated that he gives full support to a firm population policy, educating parents to be responsible, providing contraceptives to those who ask for them, but he refuses to promote contraceptive use. He said that his position "is more aptly called responsible parenthood rather than reproductive health."[34][35]

[edit] Economic and demographic premises

The Philippines is densely populated, with a density over 300 per squared kilometer, and the population growth rate is 2.04 (2007 Census), 1.957% (2010 est. by CIA World Fact Book), or 1.85% (2005-2010 high variant estimate by the UN Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision) coming from 3.1 in 1960. The 2010 total fertility rate (TFR) is 3.23 births per woman, from a TFR of 7 in 1960.[36] In addition, the total fertility rate for the richest quintile of the population is 2.0, which is about one third the TFR of the poorest quintile (5.9 children per woman). The TFR for women with college education is 2.3, about half that of women with only an elementary education (4.5 children per woman).[37] Congressman Lagman states that the bill "recognizes the verifiable link between a huge population and poverty. Unbridled population growth stunts socioeconomic development and aggravates poverty."[15] The University of the Philippines' School of Economics presented two papers in support of the bill: Population and Poverty: the Real Score (2004), and Population, Poverty, Politics and the Reproductive Health Bill (2008). According to these economists, which include Solita Monsod, Gerardo Sicat, Cayetano Paderanga, Ernesto M. Pernia, and Stella Alabastro-Quimbo, "rapid population growth and high fertility rates, especially among the poor, do exacerbate poverty and make it harder for the government to address it," while at the same time clarifying that it would be "extreme" to view "population growth as the principal cause of poverty that would justify the

government resorting to draconian and coercive measures to deal with the problem (e.g., denial of basic services and subsidies to families with more than two children)." They illustrate the connection between rapid population growth and poverty by comparing the economic growth and population growth rates of Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, wherein the first two grew more rapidly than the Philippines due to lower population growth rates.[10] They stressed that "the experience from across Asia indicates that a population policy cum government-funded [family planning] program has been a critical complement to sound economic policy and poverty reduction."[9] In Population and Poverty, Aniceto Orbeta, Jr, showed that poverty incidence is higher among big families: 57.3% of Filipino families with seven children are in poverty while only 23.8% of families who have two children live below the poverty threshold.[12]

Percentage of population living below poverty line (2003). Darker areas mean more poverty.

Proponents argue that smaller families and wider birth intervals resulting from the use of contraceptives allow families to invest more in each childs education, health, nutrition and eventually reduce poverty and hunger at the household level.[9] At the national level, fertility reduction cuts the cost of social services with fewer people attending school or seeking medical care and as demand eases for housing, transportation, jobs, water, food and other natural resources.[1][10][38] The Asian Development Bank in 2004 also listed a large population as one of the major causes of poverty in the country, together with weak macroeconomic management, employment issues, an underperforming agricultural sector and an unfinished land reform agenda, governance issues including corruption.[11]
[edit] Criticism of premises

Opposing the bill, Former Finance Secretary Roberto de Ocampo wrote that it is "truly disingenuous for anyone to proceed on the premise that the poor are to blame for the nations poverty." He emphasized that the government should apply the principle of first things first and focus on the root causes of the poverty (e.g. poor governance, corruption) and apply many other

alternatives to solve the problem (e.g. giving up pork barrel, raising tax collection efficiency).[33] They also point to the five factors for high economic growth and reduction of poverty shown by the 2008 Commission on Growth and Development headed by Nobel prize winner Michael Spence, which does not include population control.[18] Opponents also refer to a 2003 Rand Corporation study which concluded that "there is little cross-country evidence that population growth impedes or promotes economic growth...population neutralism has in fact been the predominant school in thinking among academics about population growth for the last half-century."[17] In his Primer which critiques the bill, Economist Roberto de Vera refers to Nobel prize winner Simon Kuznets's study which concludes that no clear association appears to exist in the present sample of countries, or is likely to exist in other developed countries, between rates of growth of population and of product per capita." Julian Simon compared parallel countries such as North and South Korea, East and West Germany whose birthrates were practically the same but whose economic growth was entirely different due to different governance factors. De Vera says that "similar conclusions have been arrived at by the US National Research Council in 1986 and in the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Consultative Meeting of Economists in 1992" and the studies of Hanushek and Wommann (2007), Doppelhoffer, Miller, Sala-I-Martin (2004), Ahlburg (1996), etc.[39][40] The other Nobel Prize winner who expressed the same view is Gary Becker.[41][42] De Vera also states that from 19612000, as Philippine population increased almost three times, poverty decreased from 59% to 34%.[40] He stressed that the more probable cause of poor families is not family size but the limited schooling of the household head: 78% to 90% of the poor households had heads with no high school diploma, preventing them from getting good paying jobs. He refers to studies which show that 90% of the time the poor want the children they have: as helpers in the farm and investment for a secure old age.[39][40] Instead of aiming at population decrease, De Vera stressed that the country should focus through education on cashing in on a possible demographic dividend, a period of rapid economic growth that can happens when the labor force is growing faster than the dependents (children and elderly), thus reducing poverty significantly.[39][40] In a recent development, two authors of the Reproductive Health Bill changed their stand on the provisions of the bill regarding population and development. Reps. Emerciana de Jesus and Luzviminda Ilagan wanted to delete three provisions which state that "gender equality and women empowerment are central elements of reproductive health and population and development," which integrate responsible parenthood and family planning programs into antipoverty initiatives, and which name the Population Commission as a coordinating body. The two party-list representatives strongly state that poverty is not due to over-population but because of inequality and corruption.[43]

[edit] Maternal health and deaths

Birthing services are key to solving maternal deaths

The proponents state that RH will mean: (1) Information and access to natural and modern family planning (2) Maternal, infant and child health and nutrition (3) Promotion of breast feeding (4) Prevention of abortion and management of post-abortion complications (5) Adolescent and youth health (6) Prevention and management of reproductive tract infections, HIV/AIDS and STDs (7) Elimination of violence against women (8) Counseling on sexuality and sexual and reproductive health (9) Treatment of breast and reproductive tract cancers (10) Male involvement and participation in RH; (11) Prevention and treatment of infertility and (12) RH education for the youth. There is general agreement on the health provisions of the RH bill, except for the provisions on contraception and family planning devices that have moral and health implications, and provisions on sex education done in schools. The Department of Health states that family planning can reduce maternal mortality by about 32 percent.[13] The bill is "meant to prevent maternal deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth," said Clara Padilla of Engender Rights. She reported that "Daily, there are 11 women dying while giving birth in the Philippines. These preventable deaths could have been avoided if more Filipino women have access to reproductive health information and healthcare." Regarding these figures, Francisco Tatad of the International Right to Life Federation and former Senator wrote that "If correct, experience has shown (as in Gattaran, Cagayan and Sorsogon, Sorsogon) that the incidence of maternal death arising from such complications could be fully mitigated and brought down to zero simply by providing adequate basic and emergency obstetrics care and skilled medical personnel and services," without any need for a law on the distribution of contraceptives.[24] The key to solving maternal deaths, according to the Senate Policy Brief on reproductive health, is the establishment of birthing centers.[1]

[edit] Family planning

Catholic Church: A large family is a sign of God's blessings (CCC 2373)

The majority of Filipinos are in favor of family planning. The Catholic Church teaches the necessity of responsible parenthood and correct family planning (one child at a time depending on one's circumstances), while at the same time teaching that large families are a sign of God's blessings. It teaches that modern natural family planning, a method of fertility awareness, is in accord with God's design, as couples give themselves to each other as they are. The RH bill intends to help couples to have government funded access to artificial contraception methods as well.[citation needed]
[edit] Unmet need

Using data from the 2008 National Demographic and Health Survey, Lagman stated that "Twenty-two percent of married Filipino women have an unmet need for family planning services, an increase by more than one-third since the 2003 National Demographic and Housing Survey." "Our women are having more children than they desire, as seen in the gap between desired fertility (2.5 children) and actual fertility (3.5 children), implying a significant unmet need for reproductive health services," state some Ateneo de Manila University professors. The Bill provides that "The State shall assist couples, parents and individuals to achieve their desired family size within the context of responsible parenthood for sustainable development and encourage them to have two children as the ideal family size."[9][38] Basing itself on demographic surveys, Likhaan, a non-government organization for women's health, stated that the most common reasons why women with unmet need in the Philippines do not practice contraception are health concerns about contraceptive methods, including a fear of side effects. 44% reported these reasons in 2008. The second largest category of reasons is that many believe they are unlikely to become pregnant41% in 2008. Their specific reasons include having sex infrequently, experiencing lactational amenorrhea (temporary infertility while nursing) and being less fecund than normal.[44] Writing against the bill, Bernardo Villegas wrote about the Myth of Unmet Family Planning Needs, citing development economist Lant Pritchett who said that the term "unmet need" is an elitist construct, an imposition of a need on the poor, disrespectful of their real preferences. Pritchett said that it is "based on a discrepancy...identified by the analyst through the comparison of responses to items in separate blocks of the questionnaire" and is "an inference on the part of

the researcher, not a condition reported by the respondents themselves." Pritchett argued this term is applied to women who are not sexually active, are infecund, whose husband is absent, etc., thus bloating the numbers to favor the pharmaceutical companies and those with a population control agenda. Villegas stressed: "Because [the poor] have been deprived of the infrastructures they need, such as farm-to-market roads, irrigation systems, post-harvest facilities and other support services that the State neglected to provide them, the only economic resources they have are their children." He also challenged that he is willing to bet that if the government will provide cash money to the poor to buy condoms, the poor will use the cash for food and basic needs, thus exploding the myth.[45]
[edit] Access

One of the main concerns of the proponents is the perceived lack of access to family planning devices such as contraceptives and sterilization. The bill intends to provide universal access through government funding, complementing thus private sector initiatives for family planning services, such as those offered by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) which supports the Family Planning Organizations of the Philippines and the 97 organizations of the Philippine NGO Council. The opposition argues that "Access to contraceptives is free and unrestricted" and that the proposed law is pushing an open door.[24] They say that these family planning items are available to the citizens and many local government units and NGOs provide these for free. Congressman Teddyboy Locsin argued, echoed by a Business Mirror editorial, that the poor can afford condoms since they can pay for other items such as cellphone load. Opponents also argue that Philippine government is not a welfare state, and taxpayers are not bound to provide for all the wants and desires of its citizenry, including their vanity needs, promiscuous actions and needs artificially created by elitist, imperialist and eugenicist forces; nor should taxpayers pay for drugs that are objectively dangerous (carcinogenic) and immoral. They argue that the Philippines should give priority to providing access to medicines that treat real diseases.[19][24]

Birth control pill

The UP School of Economics argues, in contrast, that there is lack of access especially for poor people, because contraceptive use is extremely low among them and "Among the poorest families, 22% of married women of reproductive age express a desire to avoid pregnancies but are still not using any family planning method."[9] They say that lack of access leads to a number of serious problems which demand attention: (1) "too many and too closely-spaced children raises the risk of illness and premature deaths (for mother and child alike)," (2) "the health risks

associated with mistimed and unwanted pregnancies are higher for adolescent mothers, as they are more likely to have complications during labor," (3) women who have mistimed pregnancies are "constrained to rely more on public education and health services and other publicly provided goods and services," further complicating limited public resources, (4) families are not able to achieve their desired family size. Thus the UP economists "strongly and unequivocally support" the thrust of the bill to enable "couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information and means to carry out their decisions.[9] Proponents argue that government-funded access is the key to breaking the intergenerational poverty that many people are trapped in.[9][38]

[edit] Abortion
One of the bill's components is "prevention of abortion and management of post-abortion complications." It provides that "the government shall ensure that all women needing care for post-abortion complications shall be treated and counseled in a humane, non-judgmental and compassionate manner." It also states that "abortion remains a crime and is punishable," as the Constitution declares that the State shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception.[46] Opposing the bill, the Faculty of Medicine of the catholic University of Santo Tomas, the Philippine Nurses Association (with at least 368,589 members), the Bioethics Society of the Philippines, Catholic Physicians Guild of the Philippines stated that the antiabortion stance of the bill is contradicted by the promotion of contraceptive agents (IUD and hormonal contraceptives) which actually act after fertilization and are potentially abortifacient agents.[47] Opposition refers to a 2000 study of a scientific journal of the American Medical Association, in which a meta-analysis of 94 studies provides evidence that when a common birth control pill fails to prevent ovulation, "postfertilization effects are operative to prevent clinically recognized pregnancy."[20] They also point to the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (2005), which concluded that the IUD brings about the "destruction of the early embryo,"[21] thus is deemed to kill five-day old babies.[8] Jo Imbong, founder of the Abay Pamilya Foundation, reported that "Lagman said in a House hearing that the bill would protect human life 'from implantation,'"[48] and not from fertilization, noting at the same time that the Records of the Constitutional Commission state that Human life begins at fertilization.[48][49] After referring to many standard textbooks of medicine and human embryology to affirm this as true,[50] the anti-RH bill citizens argue that the human embryo already has the complete genetic code and is thus a distinct human life beginning its own new life cycle. They say that the embryo is an individual, self-coordinated and self-organizing subject belonging to the species homo sapiens: a human being by nature and thus a person equally worthy of respect.[22]

5-day old human embryo called a blastocyst, which comprises 70-100 cells.

Proponents argue that research by the Guttmacher Institute, involved in advancing international reproductive health, reveals that the use of contraceptives can reduce abortion rates by 85%. Proponents such as 14 Ateneo de Manila University professors, argued thus: "Studies show that the majority of women who go for an abortion are married or in a consensual union (91%), the mother of three or more children (57%), and poor (68%) (Juarez, Cabigon, and Singh 2005). For these women, terminating a pregnancy is an anguished choice they make in the face of severe constraints. When women who had attempted an abortion were asked their reasons for doing so, their top three responses were: they could not afford the economic cost of raising another child (72%); their pregnancy occurred too soon after the last one (57%); and they already have enough children (54%). One in ten women (13%) who had attempted an abortion revealed that this was because her pregnancy resulted from forced sex (ibid.). Thus, for these women, abortion has become a family planning method, in the absence of information on and access to any reliable means to prevent an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy."[38] The bill, said Clara Padilla of EnGender Rights Inc, will "help reduce the number of abortions by providing increased access to information and services on modern contraceptive methods, that in turn will reduce the number of unwanted --and often aborted-- pregnancies."[51] Opponents of the bill argue that the Guttmacher Institute is the research arm of International Planned Parenthood and that the latter is "the largest promoter of artificial birth control and abortion worldwide."[19] Opponents argue that new data thwarts the "myth" that contraception lowers abortions.[52] Ang Kapatiran Party (AKP) in their Position Paper stated that "The Guttmacher Institute's own study in 2003 showed simultaneous increases both abortion rates and contraceptive use in the United States, Cuba, Denmark, Netherlands, Singapore, and South Korea."[53] The AKP argues that "Since contraceptives will not reduce unplanned pregnancy, they will not reduce abortion rates either and may increase them."[53] Both sides of the debate accuse the other side of deception and misleading the public. The proRH people accuse the anti-RH group of misleading the public by calling the bill an abortion bill, when the bill states that abortion remains a crime and is punishable. The anti-RH advocates accuse the RH supporters of deceiving the public regarding the true meaning of reproductive health, since US Secretary Hillary Clinton said that RH includes abortion,[54] and that RH includes the pill where "postfertilization effects are operative"[21] and the IUD which brings about the "destruction of the early embryo," according to the American Medical Association and the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.[21]

[edit] Contraceptives
[edit] Morality and social effects

Another central issue is the morality of contraception. Around 81% of Filipinos are Catholics, and the Catholic Church teaches that extramarital sex and contraception are moral evils, since they desecrate sex which is intrinsically linked to new human beings whose lives are sacred. Contraception, says the church, also makes spouses lie about their total self gift to their spouse, by not surrendering their personal fertility.[55]

Prolifers refer to economy Nobel prize winner George Akerlof who found that wide use of contraceptives led to premarital sex, illegitimate children, undomesticated men, crimes and abortions.

However, 14 professors from Ateneo de Manila University, a prominent Catholic University, considering the empirical evidence of the dire socio-economic conditions of the Filipino poor, urged that the bill be passed to help them. They argued: "As Catholics and Filipinos, we share the hope and mission of building a Church of the Poor. We are thus deeply disturbed and saddened by calls made by some members of the Catholic Church to reject a proposed legislation that promises to improve the wellbeing of Filipino families, especially the lives of women, children, adolescents, and the poor." They announced that "Catholic social teachings recognize the primacy of the well-formed conscience over wooden compliance to directives from political and religious authorities," urging Catholic authorities to withdraw their opposition the bill.[38] Citing Catholic documents and scientific studies, they reasoned that "the RH Bill is pro-life, prowomen, pro-poor, pro-youth, and pro-informed choice." They emphasized that the bill "promotes quality of life, by enabling couples, especially the poor, to bring into the world only the number of children they believe they can care for and nurture to become healthy and productive members of our society."[38] Thus, they entitled their paper as "Catholics Can Support the RH Bill in Good Conscience."[38] In response, the Ateneo administration announced its unity with Catholic teaching and that it had "serious objections to the present bill."[56] The catholic University of Santo Tomas's student

paper, The Varsitarian expressed shock about what they see as the professors' "erroneous conscience", and ignorance of economic science and medicine.[42] 42 prominent international Catholic scholars, including Janet E. Smith, Peter Kreeft, William E. May, and Joseph W. Koterski, S.J., responded to the faculty of the Ateneo, saying that It is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it," that the bill disrespects poor people, and "focuses primarily on providing services to curb the number of children of the poor, while doing little to remedy their situation."[57] Proponents such as Lagman also stressed that official Catholic teaching itself, expressed in the Encyclical Humanae Vitae issued only forty years ago in 1964, is not infallible.[15] He said that the Papal Commission on Birth Control, which included ranking prelates and theologians, recommended that the Church change its teaching on contraception as it concluded that the regulation of conception appears necessary for many couples who wish to achieve a responsible, open and reasonable parenthood in todays circumstances. The editorial of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, moreover, stated that Catholic teaching is "only" a religious teaching and should not be imposed with intolerance on a secular state. Responding to the Inquirer, opponents of the bill said that science and secular moral reasoning show the objective truth that contraception is evil and disastrous for society, and therefore a secular state should stand by this evidence. Thus they cite the 15 non-religious reasons against contraception provided by the Ethics Guide of the secular BBC which includes the loss of potential beneficent human life, causing widespread moral promiscuity, weakening family life, being unnatural and anti-life.[58] They stress that it is the errors of conscience pushed by the "dictatorship of relativism" --rather than the objective truth and the good--- that is imposing itself on people. They say that Catholic Church doctrine on contraception has been the same since its beginning,[58] taught by bishops around the world, thus part of infallible ordinary magisterium.[59] Prestigious secular and anti-Catholic social scientists are also reported to have found empirical evidence linking contraception and a variety of social ills: more premarital sex, fatherless children, and abortion; decline of marriage, crimes by unmarried men, poverty, social pathology (George Akerlof, Nobel prize winner);[25] heightened spread of AIDS (Edward C. Green, Harvard Director for AIDS);[27] breakdown of families, female impoverishment, trouble in the relationship between the sexes, and single motherhood (Lionel Tiger).[26][60] Opponents argue that misery is not the result of the church which they say is the largest charitable organization in the world, but of a breakdown in moral sense that gives order to society, nor does misery come from parents who bring up children in faithfulness, discipline, love and respect for life, but from those who strip human beings of moral dignity and responsibility, by treating them as mere machines, which they believe contraception does.[61]
[edit] Health reasons

In Medical Issues in the Reproductive Health Bill, Dr. Angelita Miguel-Aguirre refers to metaanalyses at scientific journals that show oral contraceptives (OCs) are unsafe.[19] A meta-analysis of the Stroke Journal concluded that OCs confer "risk of first ischemic stroke."[31] The World Health Organization (WHO) announced the findings of The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2007 that "there is sufficient evidence in humans for the carcinogecity of combined estrogen-progestogen contraceptives."[28][29] The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology &

Metabolism also concluded in 2005 that "a rigorous meta-analysis of the literature suggests that current use of low-dose OCs significantly increases the risk of both cardiac and vascular arterial events."[30] In its list of essential medicines, WHO stated that these drugs "have been questioned" and "will be reviewed" by its Expert Committee.[14]

The World Health Organization announced scientific findings that the pill causes cancer and kept it in its list of essential medicines

Opponents also say that being pregnant with a child is not a disease but a blessing, and that there are real diseases among the leading causes of mortality that should take on a higher priority, given the limited budget. They refer to data from the Department of Health as to the leading causes of death in the Philippines, and the daily death toll per 100,000 women are: (1) Heart diseases - 80; (2) Vascular diseases - 63; (3) Cancer - 51; (4) Pneumonia - 45; (5) Tuberculosis 23; (6) Diabetes - 22; (7) Lower chronic respiratory diseases 16.[24][62] Dr. Aguirre of the Makati Medical Society also said that "The health risks of the pill actually outweighs by far the risks of pregnancy and childbirth to a woman's health."[19] Proponents such as E. Ansioco of Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines argued that "The World Health Organization (WHO) includes contraceptives in its Model Lists of Essential Drugs" and thus are safe medicines.[13][14] "Medical and scientific evidence," says the main proponent, "shows that all the possible medical risks connected with contraceptives are infinitely lower than the risks of an actual pregnancy and everyday activities...The risk of dying within a year of using pills is 1 in 200,000. The risk of dying from a vasectomy is 1 in 1 million and the risk of dying from using an IUD is 1 in 10 million. ... But the risk of dying from a pregnancy is 1 in 10,000."[15] In Facts on Barriers to Contraceptive Use in the Philippines, Likhaan made the following projection: "If all women who wanted to avoid pregnancy used modern methods, there would be 1.6 million fewer pregnancies each year in the Philippines. Unintended births would drop by 800,000, abortions would decline by 500,000 and miscarriages would decline by 200,000. Expanding modern contraceptive use to all women at risk for unintended pregnancy would prevent 2,100 maternal deaths each year. It would also reap savings on medical care for pregnant women and newborns that would more than offset the additional spending on modern contraception."

[edit] HIV/AIDS

The RH bill provides for "prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and other, STIs/STDs," especially since the number of HIV cases among the young nearly tripled from 41 in 2007 to 110 in 2008.[51] Primary among the means is distribution of condoms. The proponents applauded government efforts last February 2010 when it distributed condoms in some areas of Manila. On the other side of the debate, Dr. Rene Josef Bullecer, Director of AIDS-Free Philippines, said that in 1987, Thailand had 112 AIDS cases, more or less the same number as the Philippines (135). By the year 2003, there were around 750,000 cases in Thailand, where there was an intense campaign for the "100% Condom Use Program", while there were only 1,935 cases in the Philippines, whose population is around 30% greater than Thailand's.[63][64] Pro-life groups refer to the Director of Harvard's Aid Prevention Center, Edward C. Green, who said that the "best evidence" agrees with Benedict XVI's statement that condom distribution risked exacerbating the spread of the virus, because availability of condoms leads to riskier sexual behavior.[27]

[edit] Sex Education

To achieve its goals, the bill provides for mandatory reproductive health education and that it be taught in "an age-appropriate manner... by adequately trained teachers starting from Grade 5 up to Fourth Year High School." Opposition to the bill is concerned about early sexualization of the youth and say that sex education promoters themselves state that it has led to more teenage pregnancies and illegitimacy. They stressed that what is needed is chastity education, especially taught by their parents, rather than sex education in school. Proponents refer to the latest UNESCO study dated December 2009 which concluded that sexuality education did not encourage early initiation into sex.[65]

[edit] Opinion polls

Proponents refer to many surveys conducted by two prominent locally based organizations (SWS and Pulse Asia) which show majority support for the bill. A survey conducted in 2008 by the Social Weather Stations, commissioned by the Forum for Family Planning and Development (FFPD), a non-government advocacy group, showed that 68 percent of Filipinos agree that there should be a law requiring government to distribute legal contraceptives.[66] SWS President and RH Bill proponent, Mahar Mangahas reported that the "survey found 71 percent in favor [of the RH Bill], 21 percent undecided, and a mere 8 percent opposed. Among those who originally knew of the bill, the score is 84 percent in favor, and 6 percent opposed. Among those who learned of the bill for the first time because of the survey, the score is 59 percent in favor, versus 11 percent opposed.[16][66] Pulse Asia reported that in an October 2008 survey "most Filipinos are aware of the reproductive health bill pending at the House of Representatives (68%) and are in favor of the bill (63%)."[67] In December 2010, Pulse Asia announced based on the results of an October 2010 survey, 69% of the Filipinos are in favor of the bill. Saying that nation-wide surveys are financed by wealthy, foreign-funded political lobby groups to create a bandwagon effect, Senator Tatad remarked that an objective measure of Filipino

preference is the consistent top electoral success of the pro-life party-list, Buhay Hayaan Yumabong (Let Life Flourish).[24] President of Prolife Philippines, Lito Atienza, said that the surveys conducted by SWS and Pulse Asia were misleading, because the participants were not fully informed of the bill, were merely aware of it, and informed that it was about health and "modern methods". Instead he referred to the Filipino Family survey of December 2009 conducted by the HB&A International (an affiliate of Louis Harris & Associates) together with the personnel of Asia Research Organization (the Philippine affiliate of Gallup International). The survey concluded that 92% of people in Metro Manila rejected the bill, "85 percent are not aware that once passed the RH bill would allow teenagers to secure 'abortifacient devices and substances' without their parents knowledge and consent....90 percent do not agree that Congress should appropriate P2 billion to the detriment of other essential medicines for free childrens vaccinations, treatment of dreaded diseases and other more important health and medical concerns."[32] Mangahas acknowledged that the SWS surveys did not include the penalties.[68]

[edit] Rallies and TV Debate

From late 2010 to the present, there have been rallies for and against the bill. The pro-life rallies against the bill where in: Mindanao - 50,000,[69], Manila (March 25) 40,000,[70] Manila (Feb) 10,000,[71] Bacolod - 20,000,[72] Cebu 10,000 to 12,000,[73] Balanga 10,000,[74] Lucena - 8,000,[75] Maasin, Leyte - 6000 to 7000,[76][77] Manila Knights of Columbus March (March 2011) - 7000,[78] Legazpi - 4000,[79] Iloilo - 4000,[80] San Pablo, Quezon - 2000,[81] Quiapo (Oct) 1500.[82] The pro-RH rallies were: Batasan - 1500,[83] CBCP complex - 1000[84] A TV Debate was also hosted by ABS-CBN last May 2011. Leaders of both sides, including Rep. Lagman and Rep. Golez were present. According to the ABS-CBN news which reported on the results: "In the SMS poll, 69.58% of votes cast reject the RH bill while 30.42% support it. In the separate online poll held on the Harapan microsite that livestreamed the debate, 63.91% support the RH bill while 36.09% oppose it.[85]

[edit] Penalties
One of the strongest criticism against the bill, even from its supporters, centers on the penal provisions, which have been called "coercive," a violation of free choice and conscience, and "totalitarian" in its approach to dissenters.[86] There is "mandatory" sex education starting grade 5, and malicious "disinformation" is penalized.[7] All health care service providers, including faith-based hospital administrators, may be imprisoned or fined if they fail to provide reproductive health care services such as providing services like ligation and vasectomy. The same may happen to employers who do not provide free services to employees.[7] Imprisonment ranges from (1) month to six (6) months or a fine ranging from Ten Thousand Pesos (P10,000.00) to Fifty Thousand Pesos (P50,000.00).[7] Former Finance Secretary, Roberto de Ocampo, stated that these punitive provisions "are tantamount to an affront to civil liberties and smack of religious persecution."[33]

Defending the bill, Dr. Felipe Medalla, former dean of the School of Economics of UP, said that "Although the poors access to family planning services can be improved even without the law, the absence of the law makes it easier to block the program."

[edit] Separation of church and state

Because 81% of Filipinos are Catholics, the Catholic Church exerts a strong influence in public life. Its staunch opposition to the bill has drawn the ire of non-Catholics and Catholics alike who support the bill, and they invoke the principle of separation of church and state to stop the church. Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J, one of the drafters of the Philippine Constitution and a prominent lawyer and writer, explained that the concept of separation of church and state is directed towards the state, rather than the church, as it is a political concept. Technically it means non-establishment of religion, as the Constitution stated that No law shall be passed respecting an establishment of religion ... It means that the state should be guided by the principle that it should support no specific religion. This means that government funding should not be allocated for building churches or mosques, and not favor any particular religion. It does not prevent the church, parents, supervisors, teachers and other moral educators from expressing their views and educating their wards on the morality of their personal and social actions. Proponents, on the other hand, state that the church should not meddle in matters of the state, and should focus on religious matters, not political matters.

[edit] Culture war and its implications

Millenium Development Goals at the UN

The national debate is seen as part of a wider culture war.[87][88] Passage or non-passage of the bill have negative implications depending on the views. Proponents state that the non-passage of the bill will mean keeping the Philippines in a backward state and unable to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, especially the points on poverty alleviation and maternal health. It will mean reneging on international commitments and will slow down modernization. Also the poor will not have free access to family planning support that many have expressed desires to have, and thus will have more children than they can care for, and will not have the money to invest in education to break the intergenerational poverty they are trapped in.

Proponents also accuse the Catholic Church of holding the Philippines "hostage" and violating the separation of church and state.[89] They argue that a decreased population growth will lead to improved quality of life and economic development. Opponents of the bill see the bill as allowing the Filipinos to be fooled by the deceptive manipulations of American imperialism and eugenicist control, using United Nations Agencies for its own national interests, and to use Philippines' own national funds to kill the youngest Filipinos, harm its own mothers, and encourage immorality. They see the bill as an act of disrespect and ingratitude to the Catholic Church that works for the poor and the sick, and for the education and development of Filipinos.[24][88] They accuse the Philippine Legislator's Committee on Population and Development as "essentially a foreign body" that has drafted the bills, and that its "2008 lobbying fund of two billion pesos comes from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, IPPF and UNFPA the latter two both well known for their global agenda to legalize abortion."[88] They say that a two-child policy will make the country fail to cash in on a possible demographic dividend of rapid economic growth, and great reduction of poverty, a chance for complete modernization without destruction of human life and promotion of immorality.[39][40]

[edit] Status
[edit] Legislature

On January 31, 2011, six different bills were consolidated into a single RH Bill which was then unanimously approved for plenary debate by the House Committee on Population and Family Relations. On February 7, 2011, the bill was scheduled to go before the House Appropriations Committee. February 16, 2011 the bill was endorsed by the House Appropriations Committee with amendment and referred back to the Population Committee for finalizing the language.
[edit] President and Cabinet

President Noynoy Aquino will provide contraceptives to parents who ask, but will not promote its use.

President Noynoy Aquino during the presidential campaign said that it confounds him why he is always associated with the RH Bill and reiterated that he is neither an author nor a co-author, much less did he sign the committee report regarding the bill. He said that "he will fully support the crafting of a firm policy that will address the serious problem on population."[34] At the same time, Aquino said that "artificial contraception was a matter of choice and conscience and that health professionals who fool people into using artificial contraceptives should be penalized. As a Catholic, Aquino said he himself was not promoting artificial contraception but believes that the government should be able to provide it to Filipinos who ask for it." Aquino stressed: "Im a Catholic, Im not promoting it. My position is more aptly called responsible parenthood rather than reproductive health."[35] According to Rina Jimenez David who is pro-RH, during the Women Deliver Philippines Conference held September 2010, Dinky Soliman, Aquino's Secretary of Social Welfare and Development, said that "choice and access constituted the keystone of the Aquino governments policy, reiterating the administrations support for the pending reproductive health bills.[90] The Cabinet and the CBCP have agreed to have a joint campaign providing full information on the advantages and risks of contraceptives, natural and artificial family planning and responsible parenthood. They have established a technical working group for this purpose. They also agreed that government will not be an "instrument to enforce or violate the conscience of the people about these issues."
[edit] Compromise and alternatives

Senate PresidentJuan Ponce Enrile, Congressman Roilo Golez and Buhay party-list separately filed bills that seek to restrict abortion and birth control use. These bills have been seen either as a nullification of the RH Bill, its alternative, or as a way of achieving unity among the populace, since the RH Bill proponents have stated their concern in preventing abortion. Presidential candidate Gilbert Teodoro or Gibo suggested a cash transfer from the government to individuals wanting access to family planning methods, whether natural or artificial. The individuals can then make use of the cash they receive to purchase birth control devices they may choose, thus guaranteeing freedom of choice.[91] The Loyola School of Theology and the John J. Carroll Institute on State and Church Issues issued 9 "Talking Points" on the RH Bill. Among other points, they proposed a study on the meaning of conception in the Constitution, and if it means fertilization, abortifacients "are to be banned even now and regardless of whether the RH Bill is passed". They also proposed "parallel programs for providing information and training, one for Natural Family Planning (NFP) and another for artificial methods of family planning".[92] Columnist Jose Sison of the Philippine Star criticized this: a Catholic School of theology has actually proposed in public, the use of tax payers money to train Filipinos to employ methods that are objectively and intrinsically evil and cites "empirical evidence and scientific proofs confirming the harmful and evil effects of contraceptives to individuals and to society."[93]

[edit] Recent Events

In September 2010, Aquino during this visit to the US reiterated his stand that he is in favor of responsible parenthood and respects the decision of each couple as to the number of children they want, and if they need the government support for contraception, then the government will provide it. This statement has created a furor as Catholic church leaders say that Aquino has sold out the Filipino soul in exchange for some "measly" aid from the United States. The President of the Catholic Bishops Conference said that there can possibly be an excommunication of the President if he continues on with his stance. Pro RH Bill Senators encouraged the President to be steadfast to do his duties towards the state. The President's spokesperson Edwin Lacierda explained that the President "has not changed his stand" and is reaching out to the prelates and said that the President himself has not made any decision in support of the Reproductive Health Bill as he is still studying the document. Lacierda said that the Executive Branch "is not involved in the passage of the RH bill, saying the measure's fate rests solely on the legislative branch." Filipino Freethinkers, an association of agnostics, atheists, progressives, etc., who have been very active in the fight in favor of the RH bill, stepped up the pressure, creating more controversy that fired up renewed interest in the bill on both sides. On 30 September 2010, one of the freethinkers, Carlos Celdran staged a protest action against the Catholic Church, holding a sign which read "DAMASO" -- a reference to the villainous, corrupt clergyman Father Dmaso of the novel Noli Me Tangere by Filipino revolutionary writer Jose Rizal -- and shouting "stop getting involved in politics!" A fan page, Free Carlos Celdran was created in Facebook, which generated 23,808 fans in 24 hours. Francisco Montalvan of the Inquirer said that in the end the Damasos are the scheming, corrupt and deceptive people, implying that the "pro-death advocates" are these, while the Cardinal Rosales who started a nationwide fund for the poor is very far from Damaso. Meanwhile, the Imam Council of the Philippines, the top leaders of the Moslem population which at 4.5 M constitutes 5% of the Philippine population, declared that they are against contraceptives since using them "underestimates God," and "makes one lose morality in the process." During the first public hearing on Nov 24, the chair of the Committee on Population handling the bill said that there is no instruction from the Speaker of the House to expedite the bill. Upon the call of anti-RH congressmen, the Committee Chair decided to refer the bill also to the Committee on Health, since the bill is about Reproductive Health. Leader of the pro-RH group, Elizabeth Ansioco, said that the bill is doomed if it is referred to the Committee on Health. Anti-RH Deputy Speaker Congressman Pablo Garcia said the members of the Committee on Health know of the WHO announcement on the carcinogenicity of combined estrogen-progestogen oral contraceptives. House Speaker Belmonte said that Congress is not likely to rush the legislation of the bill and will tackle it in plenary early next year. Belmonte said it is better that highly contentious bills be given more attention. On 3 December, the Senate cut the proposed budget of P 880M for contraceptives down to P 8M for condoms since other contraceptives violated the Constitution's ban on abortifacients, and Senator Tito Sotto III said that his constituents never asked for contraceptives.

Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) has expressed support for the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill. In a letter to House population and family relations committee chairman Rep. Rogelio Espina on October 2010, INC Executive Minister Eduardo Manalo said the bill needs to be passed.

[edit] International reactions

[edit] European Union

European Union Ambassador to the Philippines Alistair MacDonald said "We have all seen the figures on illegal abortion a year in the Philippines and I very much hope that both Houses of Congress will take these issues into account in producing a reproductive health legislation which will really help people make their own choices and to provide for their families."[94] MacDonald said that lack of effective access to reproductive health services in the Philippines was 'antithetical' to the countrys struggle against poverty and "It seems to me extremely unlikely that the Philippines will be able to meet its commitment under the MDGs under the present policy."[94] MacDonald noted that the total fertility rate for the richest quintile of the population is 2.0, while the total fertility rate of the poorest quintile is 5.9. The total fertility rate for women with a college education is 2.3, about half that of women with only elementary education (4.5). He mentioned that the lack of access to RH services is anti-women, citing the slow decline in the maternal mortality ratio in the Philippines. He also said surveys suggest that the total wanted fertility rate for the Philippines is 2.4 children, or below the actual TFR of 3.3 children.[94]
[edit] International scholars

An international group of conservative catholic scholars, including George Weigel, Mary Ann Glendon, Thomas Lickona have expressed opposition to the bill in a one-page ad in the major newspapers of the Philippines, entitled Population Control Does Not Reduce Poverty. They refer to the RAND Corporation study of 2003, which states that "Most economic analysis has examined the statistical correlation between population and economic growth and found little significant connection... there is little cross-country evidence that population growth impedes or promotes economic growth... The neutralist theory has been the dominant view since the mid1980s... population neutralism has in fact been the predominant school in thinking among academics about population growth for the last half-century."[17] The international scholars stressed that "Corruption, lack of education, and lack of opportunity cause poverty. The poor are victims of poverty, not the cause of poverty... HB 96 seeks to establish a government-managed program of population management and demographic targets in the Philippines. This policy is based on incorrect economics assumptions."

[edit] References
1. ^ a b c d e f g h i (PDF) Promoting Reproductive Health: A Unified Strategy to Achieve the MDGs. Senate of the Philippines Economic Planning Office. July 2009. PB-09-03. 2. ^ Romero, Paolo (February 1, 2011). "House panel approves RH bill". www.philstar.com. Philippine Star. Retrieved February 1, 2011.

3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Dalangin-Fernandez, Lira (February 1, 2011). "RH bill OKd at House committee level". politics.inquirer.net. Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved February 1, 2011. 4. ^ 12 World Leaders (January 1968). "Declaration on Population". Studies in Family Planning. JSTOR 1965194. 5. ^ a b Antonio de los Reyes (2002). "Coercive Population Ploys in the Philippines". Population Research Institute. 6. ^ a b US Department of National Security (1974). "National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM 200)". USAID. 7. ^ a b c d e f g "RH Bill - Philippines: full text of reproductive health and related measures". Likhaan. May 2010. 8. ^ a b Gregory Gaston (2008). "Misconceptions and Clarifications on Issues Related to Humanae Vitae and the Reproductive "Health" Bill in Philippine Congress.". Avenues (San Carlos Seminary Graduate School of Theology). 9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Ernesto M. Pernia, Stella Alabastro-Quimbo, Maria Joy V. Abrenica, Ruperto P. Alonzo, Agustin L. Arcenas, Arsenio M. Balisacan, Dante B. Canlas, Joseph J. Capuno, Ramon L. Clarete, Rolando A. Danao, Emmanuel S. de Dios, Aleli dela Paz-Kraft, Benjamin E. Diokno, Emmanuel F. Esguerra, Raul V. Fabella, Maria Socorro Gochoco-Bautista, Teresa J. Ho, Dennis Claire S. Mapa, Felipe M. Medalla, Maria Nimfa F. Mendoza, Solita C. Monsod, Toby Melissa C. Monsod, Fidelina Natividad-Carlos, Cayetano W. Paderanga, Gerardo P. Sicat, Orville C. Solon, Edita A. Tan, and Gwendolyn R. Tecson (2008-08-11). "Population, Poverty, Politics and the Reproductive Health Bill". 2010 Presidentiables. 10. ^ a b c d e f Ruperto P. Alonzo, Arsenio M. Balisacan, Dante B. Canlas, Joseph J. Capuno, Ramon L. Clarete, Rolando A. Danao, Emmanuel S. de Dios, Benjamin E. Diokno, Emmanuel F. Esguerra, Raul V. Fabella, Ma. Socorro Gochoco-Bautista, Aleli P. Kraft, Felipe M. Medalla, Nimfa F. Mendoza, Solita C. Monsod, Cayetano W. Paderanga, Jr., Ernesto M. Pernia, Stella A. Quimbo, Gerardo P. Sicat, Orville C. Solon, Edita A. Tan, and Gwendolyn R. Tecson (December 2004) (PDF). Population and Poverty: the Real Score. University of the Philippines School of Economics. DP2004-15. 11. ^ a b ADB (2004). "Poverty in the Philippines". Asian Development Bank. 12. ^ a b Aniceto Orbeta, Jr. (2003). "Population and Poverty: A Review of the Evidence, Links, Implications for the Philippines". Philippine Journal of Development (Philippine Institute for Development Studies) XXX (56): 198227. 13. ^ a b c Elizabeth Angsioco (2008-10-08). "Arguments for the Reproductive Health Bill". The Manila Times (The Manila Times Publishing Corp.). 14. ^ a b c "WHO Model List of Essential Medicines". World Health Organization. 2008 March. 15. ^ a b c d Edcel Lagman (2008-08-03). "Facts and Fallacies on the Reproductive Health Bill". Philippine Daily Inquirer. 16. ^ a b Mahar Mangahas (2008-10-18). "New polls on reproductive health". Philippine Daily Inquirer. 17. ^ a b c "The Demographic Dividend: A New Perspective on the Economic Consequences of Population Change". Rand Corporation. 2003. 18. ^ a b Raul Nidoy (2010-11-07). "Science Facts on the RH Bills". University of the Philippines Alumni Association. 19. ^ a b c d e Angelita Miguel-Aguirre (2008-08-11). "Medical Issues in the Reproductive Health Bill". The Truths and Half Truths about Reproductive Health, The Bishops-Legislators Caucus of the Philippines.

20. ^ a b Larimore WL, Stanford JB (2000). "Postfertilization effects of oral contraceptives and their relationship to informed consent" (PDF). Arch Fam Med 9 (2): 12633. doi:10.1001/archfami.9.2.126. PMID 10693729. Retrieved 2010-10-05. 21. ^ a b c d Joseph B. Stanford and Rafael T. Mikolajczyk (2005). "Mechanisms of action of intrauterine devices: Update and estimation of postfertilization effects". American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (W.B. Saunders Comp) 187: 16991708. doi:10.1067/mob.2002.128091. PMID 12501086. 22. ^ a b Peter Kreeft. "Human Personhood Begins at Conception". Medical Ethics Policy Monograph. Stafford, Virginia: Castello Institute. 23. ^ a b Ang Kapatiran Party (2010-11-15). "A Position Paper on the Reproductive Health Bills". Phnix. 24. ^ a b c d e f g Francisco Tatad (2008-09-14). "Procreative Rights and Reproductive Wrongs". Scribd. 25. ^ a b John Jalsevac (2008-07-25). ""Heaps of Empirical Evidence" Vindicate Pope Paul VI's Dire Warnings 40 Years Ago About Contraceptive Culture". Life Site News (Lifeissues.net). 26. ^ a b Mary Eberstadt (August/Sept 2008). "The Vindication of Humanae Vitae". First Things. 27. ^ a b c Bess Twiston Davies (2009-03-16). "Harvard Aids expert says Pope 'correct' on condoms and spread of HIV: The head of Harvard's Aids Prevention Centre says condom use does not lower HIV infection rates". The Times (Times Newspapers Ltd). 28. ^ a b "Combined Estrogen-Progestogen Contraceptives" (PDF). IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans (International Agency for Research on Cancer) 91. 2007. 29. ^ a b UNDP/UNFPA/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP) (2005). "Carcinogenicity of combined hormonal contraceptives and combined menopausal treatment". Press release. 30. ^ a b Jean-Patrice Baillargeon, Donna K. McClish, Paulina A. Essah, and John E. Nestler (2005). "Association between the Current Use of Low-Dose Oral Contraceptives and Cardiovascular Arterial Disease: A Meta-Analysis". Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (The Endocrine Society) 90 (7): 38633870. doi:10.1210/jc.2004-1958. PMID 15814774. 31. ^ a b Jeanet M. Kemmeren, Bea C. Tanis, Maurice A.A.J. van den Bosch, Edward L.E.M. Bollen, Frans M. Helmerhorst, Yolanda van der Graaf, Frits R. Rosendaal, and Ale Algra (2002). "Risk of Arterial Thrombosis in Relation to Oral Contraceptives (RATIO) Study: Oral Contraceptives and the Risk of Ischemic Stroke". Stroke (American Heart Association, Inc.) 33 (5): 12021208. doi:10.1161/01.STR.0000015345.61324.3F. PMID 11988591. 32. ^ a b Macon Ramos-Araneta (2010-01-09). "Poll thumbs down reproductive bill". Manila Standard. 33. ^ a b c Roberto de Ocampo (2009-11-27). "Kill Bill?". Philippine Daily Inquirer. 34. ^ a b Various (2010-03-06). "How they stand on population". Philippine Daily Inquirer. 35. ^ a b Philip Tubeza (2010-03-15). "Aquino eases up on reproductive health bill". Philippine Daily Inquirer. 36. ^ "The World Factbook - Philippines". U.S. Central Intelligence Angency. Retrieved 2009. 37. ^ Lee Brago, Pia (December 28, 2010). "EU hopes Congress will approve RH bill". Philippine Star. Retrieved January 29, 2011. 38. ^ a b c d e f g Marita Castro Guevara, Raymond Aguas, Liane Pena Alampay, et al (2008-10-15). "CATHOLICS CAN SUPPORT THE RH BILL IN GOOD CONSCIENCE". 2010 Presidentiables. 39. ^ a b c d Roberto de Vera (2008-08-11). "A Primer on the proposed Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood, and Population Development Consolidated Bill". The Truths and Half Truths about Reproductive Health, The Bishops-Legislators Caucus of the Philippines.

40. ^ a b c d e Society of Catholic Social Scientists Philippines (2005). "A National Perfidy". Catholic Social Science Review (Society of Catholic Social Scientists) 10: 325338. 41. ^ Tony Roxas (September 2009). "The Socio-Economic Sophisms of the RH Bill 5043". Impact Magazine. 42. ^ a b Varsitarian (2008-11-20). "Dishonest, mediocre, anti-poor". Varsitarian. 43. ^ Calonzo, Andreo. "Error: no |title= specified when using {{Cite web}}". 2 RH authors want population control provisions scrapped. GMA News Online. http://www.gmanews.tv/story/222199/nation/2-rh-authors-want-population-controlprovisions-scrapped. Retrieved 1 June 2011. 44. ^ "Facts on Barriers to Contraceptive Use in the Philippines". Likhaan. May 2010. 45. ^ Bernardo Villegas (2010-08-29). "The myth of unmet family planning needs". Manila Bulletin. 46. ^ "Full text of House Bill No. 5043". jlp-law.com. 2008. 47. ^ Varsitarian (2008-12-12). "Med experts slam birth control bill". University of Santo Tomas. 48. ^ a b Jo Imbong (2008-08-16). "Reckless and irresponsible". Philippine Daily Inquirer. 49. ^ Records of the Constitutional Commission IV: 761, 801. 1986-09-18. 50. ^ Clinicquotes. "When Does Life Begin? Scientists Speak...". Retrieved 2010-10-22. 51. ^ a b Clara Padilla (2010-04-11). "Voting with our Gonads". Philippine Daily Inquirer. 52. ^ Steven Ertelt (2009-10-15). "Guttmacher Institute Claims Contraception Lowers Abortions, Data Shows Otherwise". Life Site News (Lifeissues.net). 53. ^ a b Ang Kapatiran Party (2010-09-04). "A Position Paper on the Reproductive Health Bills". Phnix. 54. ^ "Transcript of Secretary Clinton's statement to G8 Ministers". Center for Reproductive Rights. March 2010. 55. ^ Charles J. Chaput (1998). "Of Human Life". Archdiocese of Denver. 56. ^ Bienvenido Nebres (2008-10-23). "Statement on Reproductive Health Bill 5043". Ateneo de Manila University. 57. ^ Prof Janet E. Smith, Robert G Kennedy, PhD, Richard S. Meyers, Romanus Cessario, O.P., Rev. Joseph W. Koterski, S.J., et al (2008). "AN INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC RESPONSE TO SOME ATENEO DE MANILA PROFESSORS STATEMENT ON REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH". First Things First. 58. ^ a b Raul Nidoy (2010-03-13). "Two errors in editorial on contraception". Philippine Daily Inquirer. 59. ^ Vicenzo Fagiolo (1989). "Humanae Vitae 25 Years Later". Catholic Culture. 60. ^ W. Bradford Wilcox (2005). The Facts of Life & Marriage: Social Science & the Vindication of Christian Moral Teaching. Natural Family Planning Outreach. 61. ^ Joseph Ratzinger (2002). "God and the World". Trade Union Congress of the Philippines. 62. ^ "LEADING CAUSES OF MORTALITY". Department of Health. 1997. 63. ^ Rene Josef Bullecer. Telling the Truth: AIDS Rates for Thailand and the Philippines. Human Life International. 64. ^ Brian Clowes (2006). "Condoms, STD, Teenagers, and International Case Studies Showing Condom Ineffectiveness Against HIV/AIDS". Life Site News (Lifeissues.net). 65. ^ UNESCO, Sexuality Education Guidelines 66. ^ a b Johanna Camille Sisante (2008-10-15). "Solons laud SWS survey on family planning". GMANews.TV (GMA). 67. ^ Pulse Asia (2008). "Pulse Asia's October 2008 Nationwide Survey on Reproductive Health and the Reproductive Health Bill". Pulse Asia. 68. ^ Mahar Mangahas (2009-11-20). "Business groups work for RH compromise". Philippine Daily Inquirer.

69. ^ http://www.cbcpnews.com/?q=node/15088/http://ph.news.yahoo.com/rh-bill-advocatesshrug-off-churchs-prayer-rally-20110327-190400-616.html 70. ^ http://www.cbcpnews.com/?q=node/5026 / http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=669859&publicationSubCategoryId=63 71. ^ http://www.cbcpnews.com/?q=node/ 72. ^ http://www.sunstar.com.ph/bacolod/local-news/20000-join-rally-vs-rh-bill 73. ^ http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=656684 74. ^ http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20110328-328023/7-Bataan%20%20barangays-follow-Ayala-Alabang-pass-own-RH-laws 75. ^ http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view/20110313-325287/Thousandsin-Laguna-Quezon-Leyte-march-vs-RH-bill 76. ^ http://www.cbcpnews.com/?q=node/14959 77. ^ http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view/20110313-325287/Thousandsin-Laguna-Quezon-Leyte-march-vs-RH-bill 78. ^ http://www.cbcpnews.com/?q=node/15092 79. ^ http://www.cbcpnews.com/?q=node/5026 80. ^ http://www.iloilonewstoday.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1002:weneed-to-debate-on-rh-bill-says-garin&catid=98:local-news 81. ^ http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view/20110313-325287/Thousandsin-Laguna-Quezon-Leyte-march-vs-RH-bill 82. ^ http://www.cbcpnews.com/?q=node/13319 83. ^ http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/metro-manila/02/16/11/rh-bill-activists-hold-rallyhouse-oks-rh-budget 84. ^ http://filipinofreethinkers.org/2011/02/24/silent-rage-against-the-cbcp-rh-bill-rally/ 85. ^ http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/-depth/05/08/11/philippines-still-divided-reproductive-healthbill 86. ^ Society for the Protection of the Unborn (August 2008). "Commentary on the Philippine Reproductive Health Bill". Society for the Protection of the Unborn (SPUC) Website, London UK. London, UK. 87. ^ John Carrol, S.J. (2009-12-08). "A ceasefire in the culture war?". Philippine Daily Inquirer. 88. ^ a b c Linda Valenzona (2008-10-21). "The Filipino front in the culture wars". MercatorNet. 89. ^ Conrado de Quiros (2010-10-04). "Hostage". Philippine Daily Inquirer. 90. ^ Rina Jimenez-David (2010-08-21). "One big fight". Philippine Daily Inquirer. 91. ^ Bernardo Villegas (2010-04-22). "Continuing dialogue on RHB". Manila Bulletin. 92. ^ Fr. Eric O. Genilo, S.J., Fr, John J. Carroll, S.J., and Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J. (2010-10-11). "Talking Points for Dialogue on the Reproductive Health Bill (HB 96; filed July 1 , 2010)". Ateneo de Manila University. 93. ^ Jose Sison (2010-11-08). "Nagging questions". Philippine Star. 94. ^ a b c Pia Lee-Brago (2010-12-28). "EU hopes Congress will approve RH bill". Philippine Star.

[edit] Readings and external links

House Bill No. 4244 Senate Bill No. 2378

[edit] Supporting the RH Bill

Edcel Lagman (2010-06-01). "House Bill No. 96: An Act Providing For a National Policy on Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population and Development and Other Purposes". Philippine NGO Council on Population, Health and Welfare Inc. "Full text of House Bill No. 5043 (Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2008)". web log. Jaromay Laurente Pamaos Law Offices. 2008-09-22. "Facts on Barriers to Contraceptive Use in the Philippines". Likhaan. May 2010. Elizabeth Angsioco (2008-10-08). "Arguments for the Reproductive Health Bill". The Manila Times (The Manila Times Publishing Corp.). Edcel Lagman (2008-08-03). "Facts and Fallacies on the Reproductive Health Bill". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Ruperto P. Alonzo, Arsenio M. Balisacan, Dante B. Canlas, Joseph J. Capuno, Ramon L. Clarete, Rolando A. Danao, Emmanuel S. de Dios, Benjamin E. Diokno, Emmanuel F. Esguerra, Raul V. Fabella, Ma. Socorro Gochoco-Bautista, Aleli P. Kraft, Felipe M. Medalla, Nimfa F. Mendoza, Solita C. Monsod, Cayetano W. Paderanga, Jr., Ernesto M. Pernia, Stella A. Quimbo, Gerardo P. Sicat, Orville C. Solon, Edita A. Tan, and Gwendolyn R. Tecson (December 2004) (PDF). Population and Poverty: the Real Score. University of the Philippines School of Economics. DP2004-15. Elizabeth Angsioco (2010-03-04). "KALUSUGAN NG KABABAIHAN: Making Women Matter in the 2010 Elections". Rational Hero. Oplan Pepe. (PDF) Promoting Reproductive Health: A Unified Strategy to Achieve the MDGs. Senate of the Philippines Economic Planning Office. July 2009. PB-09-03. Ernesto M. Pernia, Stella Alabastro-Quimbo, Maria Joy V. Abrenica, Ruperto P. Alonzo, Agustin L. Arcenas, Arsenio M. Balisacan, Dante B. Canlas, Joseph J. Capuno, Ramon L. Clarete, Rolando A. Danao, Emmanuel S. de Dios, Aleli dela Paz-Kraft, Benjamin E. Diokno, Emmanuel F. Esguerra, Raul V. Fabella, Maria Socorro Gochoco-Bautista, Teresa J. Ho, Dennis Claire S. Mapa, Felipe M. Medalla, Maria Nimfa F. Mendoza, Solita C. Monsod, Toby Melissa C. Monsod, Fidelina Natividad-Carlos, Cayetano W. Paderanga, Gerardo P. Sicat, Orville C. Solon, Edita A. Tan, and Gwendolyn R. Tecson (2008-08-11). "Population, Poverty, Politics and the Reproductive Health Bill". 2010 Presidentiables. Marita Castro Guevara, Raymond Aguas, Liane Pena Alampay, et al (2008-10-15). "CATHOLICS CAN SUPPORT THE RH BILL IN GOOD CONSCIENCE". 2010 Presidentiables. Aniceto Orbeta, Jr. (2003). "Population and Poverty: A Review of the Evidence, Links, Implications for the Philippines". Philippine Journal of Development (Philippine Institute for Development Studies) XXX (56): 198227.*Elizabeth Aguiling-Pangalangan (2010). "A Forum on

Population, Development and Reproductive Health". Shame of the Nation Series (Philippine Institute for Development Studies).

Clara Padilla (2010-04-11). "Voting with our Gonads". Philippine Daily Inquirer.

[edit] Opposing the RH Bill

Antonio de los Reyes (2002). "Coercive Population Ploys in the Philippines". Population Research Institute. Angelita Miguel-Aguirre (2008-08-11). "Medical Issues in the Reproductive Health Bill". Monograph. Francisco Tatad (2008-09-14). "Procreative Rights and Reproductive Wrongs". Scribd. Raul Nidoy (2010-11-07). "Science Facts on the RH Bills". University of the Philippines Alumni Association. Ang Kapatiran Party (2010-11-15). "A Position Paper on the Reproductive Health Bills". Phnix. Pro life Philippines. "Why pop-control is not the solution to poverty". Prolife Philippines. Jo Imbong (2008-08-16). "Reckless and irresponsible". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Tony Roxas (September 2009). "The Socio-Economic Sophisms of the RH Bill 5043". Impact Magazine. Roberto de Vera (2008-08-11). "A Primer on the proposed Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood, and Population Development Consolidated Bill". Scibd. Society for the Protection of the Unborn (August 2008). "Commentary on the Philippine Reproductive Health Bill". Society for the Protection of the Unborn (SPUC) Website, London UK. London, UK. Alliance for the Family (2008-11-06). "Questions about the Reproductive Health Act". Alliance for the Family. Gregory Gaston (2008). "Misconceptions and Clarifications on Issues Related to Humanae Vitae and the Reproductive "Health" Bill in Philippine Congress.". Avenues (San Carlos Seminary Graduate School of Theology). Society of Catholic Social Scientists Philippines (2005). "A National Perfidy". Catholic Social Science Review (Society of Catholic Social Scientists) 10: 325338.

[edit] Other readings

Full text of NSSM 200 (US government source)

he Redundancy of RH Bill 5043

November 2, 2008 By Nick 33 Comments Share10 The Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2008, or RH Bill 5043, as it stands, has been at the center of much of the heated debate which has been revolving around such issues as poverty, abortion, contraceptives, and the role of the church in our nations progress as it deals with population. The debate has taken a life of its own, much of the commentary of which has gone way south, and into deep philosophical differences between those who are for or against the church meddling in state affairs. Here is my final verdict on the matter, of which, if you dont have the stomach to read further commentary on more RH related words, is simply that this bill is redundant and has actually been hijacked by those trying to use it for propaganda purposes to suit their own ideological and/or political motivations. If proponents say that this will be the solution towards providing for a better population control policy, it will not be because we have not addressed the fundamental issue of the implementation of such a law, which in much of its provisions, should already be implemented by existing agencies. If those who oppose, such as The Catholic Church, because this might lead to promiscuity, murder, and/or abortion, then they are basing their argument on the notion that knowledge and information leads not to a prosperous nation. In either case, the debate is misconstrued, pushed towards ideological extremes, and misses the most important of all debates, how and why should any part of this bill be implemented, when in fact, current laws and agencies can already do what is being proposed. From where I stand, or sit, the strong points, are not strong enough of a motivation for me to support this bill. It is not a catholic point of view, nor a neo-conservative view, it is a view based on the provisions contained therein. It is a view based on the belief that government must first look at its existing departments and streamline their roles. Existing departments can already do much of what is inherent in the current RH Bill. A bloated bill this has become, and in some instances, exerting too much government control on matters it has no right to meddle in. This is a bill that gives more power to government, more red tape, and more bureaucracy. Making our current system a continuing model of inefficiency. If we streamline our current departments of government, take education head on, and enforce existing laws and bills, including pushing once again the need for cheaper medicines, then the RH Bill need not be necessary. If you wish to have a debate on pro life, abortion, euthanasia, defining life, and the church stand, separation of church and state, the bill may just be a spark to that debate, but it is not about that

debate inasmuch as it is about the need for our nation to progress and if that progression is indeed tied to whether or not population is a key factor to the hindrance of this progress. And still, if it is a debate on population and the related factors including contraception and abortion, we already have agencies created for such. And I will hammer on this point until it sinks in. One side of the debate says tuh-mey-toh, the other side says tuh-mah-toh, same bill, different interpretations, different ideologies, all going off on tangents, because the current RH bill, as it stands now, is actually a potato. At the end of the day, if level heads surface, this bill may only take 1 page to actually be effective and non-redundant. Our focus should be efficiency, of which government implementation is severely lacking. The RH Bill is tantamount to a non-binding resolution, simply because it creates more bureaucracy without the need to actually strengthen existing ones. It is the creation of a piece of paper that is being used by its proponents to effectively loosen the power of the church, and yet, does not do anything much than sound off on existing responsibilities that should be handled by existing agencies and departments of government. Case in point, here is a FAQ as to the Family Health Programs of The Department of Health, In general, what are the main functions of the Family Health Office? The Family Health Office formulates or develops policies, standards and guidelines for public health services. It also provides technical assistance in public health program/project planning, implementation and evaluation. What are the major public health programs under the Family Health Office?

Family Planning (Artificial and Natural) Reproductive Health

What are the different public health services does these programs provides? A. Child and Adolescent Health * Care of the unborn * Immediate newborn care * Newborn screening * Infant and young child feeding (including Breastfeeding) * Full immunization * Adequate nutrition (including Micronutrients/food fortification) * Early childhood care and development * Regular growth monitoring and promotion * Oral health promotion and care * Appropriate management of illnesses

* Deworming * Promotion of child safety/injury prevention B. Maternal Health * Preparatory services prior to pregnancy * Quality prenatal care * Safe delivery * Quality postpartum care * Newborn Care C. Womenss Health * Family Planning services * Prevention and Management of Abortion and its Complications * Women and Children Protection Unit So, when I say redundant, its right there in writing. But I do applaud this bill because it has stirred the pot on the issues that has been festering, especially in terms of population control, abortion, and family planning, and the stranglehold that the Catholic Church has held on our state. The Church is not our state, there is no concurrent state within our republic. If The Memorandum of Agreement is unconstitutional, the imposing of the Catholic Church on the progress of our nation should also be declared unconstitutional. But this is a bill that has copy-paste written all over it and has failed to realize that the DOH is already mandated and tasked to provide such provisions that have been made. Take for example, in the bill, the stipulation that medical care must be extended to those who are requiring emergency treatment in cases of pregnancy and those of maternity cases, or even those that need post-abortion attention. Redundant. Inasmuch as this seems like a responsible statement to make, the most responsible and legal act is to extend medical care to all medical emergencies, period. Already, such statements flies against the face of the fact that emergency care must be provided to everyone, in all cases, irrespective of the background of that case. And in this instance, this statement goes at the heart of health care in general, and in the end, it should be a push towards a proper health care plan, so that such emergencies are reduced, and preventative care emphasized. The proponents of the bill may have had the goal of loosening the Churchs hold on the state, which is fine, just dont insult our intelligence by crafting a redundant piece of legislation. I mean, such a move towards this goal should not be handled through legislation, but through civil society. Leglislating is serious business, time lost, money spent, all of which could be channeled towards crafting a more comprehensive health care program.

The Church is already supposed to not meddle in the affairs of state, no amount of legislation can repeal this, because it is already stated plain and clear in the constitution. It is our societys need to rest on the church for its morals that should be questioned. We should be looking towards DOH since many of the provisions mentioned are already mandated by DOH, not to mention a competing bill regarding medicine, which is the cheaper medicines bill, which would make medicine including contraceptives more affordable. Furthermore, as stated, regarding emergency care for maternity patients, this should already be taken care of irregardless of whether or not this bill passes. It is not that what is contained in the bill is irrelevant, not important, or is false, and will not help in our need to help our nation progress. Thats contrary to the point. and the point, as I will have to stress, over and over, here on this article, is that the bill is redundant. At the risk of alienating myself from both sides of the debate, I have to say, both sides are wrong for reasons that are clear, that the debate is no longer about the bill itself, it is about philosophical differences, that should be waged, not with the use of taxpayers money, and the time of our legislators. Why has this bill received such great fanfare? Because it is once again, going to the heart of our culture, and the need for many to finally try to separate the churchs role in our affairs of state. The RH Bill has become nothing more than the talking point with which both sides can argue their points on abortion, right to life, population, and the role of The Catholic Church. Fine, let the discussion take place, but dont insult the Filipino people, waste valuable legislative hours, by a redundant bill. All the arguments regarding population is fine by me, because I actually happen to agree, but this is not the bill with which anything positive will result. The fact is, it is a redundant bill, a copy paste type of legislation. Take a stand against the imposition of the Catholic Church to legislate from its high horse, but dont push a piece of legislation that is nothing short of redundant. Pro or Anti RH Bill? Maybe we should be discussing pro or Anti efficiency of government institutions that should already be doing what is contained in the RH Bill. March not on the streets, but maybe towards your local DOH offices and push for them to stop sitting on their asses, and actually do something they were supposed to be doing in the first place. Act on their mandate. The RH Bill is not a silver bullet cure of what ails our nation, even if its premise lies in population control as one of the means to alleviate poverty, nor is The RH Bill the proponent for pro Abortion and anti-life. Its simply the main propaganda tool for which proponents need to lodge an attack on the church. fine, it has done so, mission accomplished, now lets move on to

actually making certain departments and the current government accountable for its lack of implementation of its mandate given to it by the people. The fact is, that this is becoming a test case, to slowly chip away at the church, and as Manolo would suggest, a litmus test. And so, the bill and the debate moves ahead, without anyone really looking at the implementation of such a scheme, and the realization, that the debate has gone south, veered away so much so, that it is no longer about Reproductive Health per se, but a debate on the religious merits of issues that should not be tied to it in the first place. And oh, did I mention that this bill is redundant? Well, just wanted to make sure you got my point. Popularity: 7% [?]

K+12 Program Supported

By INA HERNANDO-MALIPOT October 8, 2010, 7:05pm

MANILA, Philippines While parents, teachers, and students continue to oppose the plan of the Department of Education (DepEd) to implement the Enhanced K+12 program, educators and other stakeholders expressed their support to turn the 10-year basic education cycle to 12 years. Philippine Business for Education (PBEd), a group of top businessmen who are pushing for education reforms, welcomed governments strong resolve to finally put in place a decades-old proposal for a K+12 basic education cycle. In an official statement, PBEd expressed support to Education Secretary Armin Luistro for prioritizing the K+12 proposal saying it is finally moving forward as various stakeholders have been brought into a serious consultation process aiming to develop a model for implementation that will bring the least disruption with the most benefit to the education system. PBEd reiterated that the additional years in basic education cannot be separated from the issue of poor quality of the education system. Forcing into 10 years a curriculum that is learned by the rest of the world in 12 has resulted in poor performance by our students. The PBEd stated that over and above the poor quality and lack of teachers, textbooks and workbooks and facilities, continues to make learning a growing challenge for more and more of the students.

PBEd also believed that making kinder and an additional two years available to all in the public basic education system is another pro-poor and poverty-combating initiative of the Aquino administration. The K+12 gives to the masses the extra years of schooling that for many years has only been available in private elite education institutions. Studies have shown that every additional year of schooling improves the income potential of a student as she/he enters the world of work.

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Comments
Fri, 12/10/2010 - 09:21 NUQUE_YU_08

it is acceptable to add two years in the basic education because as for now, Philippines is the only country who have 10-year basic education according to UNESCO. It will surely help less fortunate children to be employed because after their basic education, they were equipped with technical-vocational skills for them to be employed if they cannot afford to finish a degree course.

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Sat, 10/09/2010 - 16:49 accapistrano

K +12 is dumb and backwards. Nice goin'. The rest of the world is learning at 12 years something we have done for decades at 10 years. We have to catch up with the slow heads of our neighbors do we? And mind you, decades ago Philippine education is regarded as one of the best in the world. Want some proof? Ask yourself where our best doctors, engineers, teachers are educated decades ago. They are in the rest of the world. So why the heck add more years? Why not just rejuvenate the system and bring the old teaching system back? Instead of spending billions of pesos of taxpayers money on a new system, wouldn't it be better to buy new and better books and build new and better school buildings?

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Sat, 10/09/2010 - 09:40 eduardo nufable

The k+12 program of Deped is laudable,however do the proponents ever put into consideration the actual situation of our fellow Filipinos in the hinterlands? This is one big reason why so much resistance is faced by this program because they never include in their information how they are going to address the actual problems of our present education system. It seems that every time a new secretary of Deped is installed, he comes out with a new idea "to so called" improved the system but never layout a feasible plan that is acceptable to the least privileged among us. This is what happened because people who sits in the department comes from a highly privileged and "intellectual" member of the society. DepEd to announce K+12 program Tuesday By Tarra Quismundo Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 02:04:00 10/05/2010 Filed Under: Education, State Budget & Taxes MANILA, Philippines?How will an additional two years improve basic education when schools are forced to hold classes in three shifts and students can?t understand their lessons because they are hungry? Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, the president of Ateneo de Manila University, could not see how the Aquino administration?s proposed two-year extension of the 10-year basic education cycle would lift the quality of education. ?This all sounds very nice, but if you get down to the ground, it doesn?t make sense,? Nebres told a forum last week on the proposed K+12 (Kindergarten plus 12) program. The Department of Education (DepEd) will announce on Tuesday the administration?s priority program to catch up with the rest of the world having a 12-year basic education cycle in spite of admitted lack of funds and the need to amend the 1982 education law. The announcement coincides with Teachers? Day celebrations and marks the start of nationwide consultations about the plan. The proposal aims to produce employable 18-year-old high school graduates by giving them a longer time to study and master employable skills. Education Secretary Armin Luistro has so far declined to give details of the program other than it will involve a transition of around four to five years beginning next year. ?It?s a series of different steps,? Luistro said.

Chosen model Education Undersecretary Yolanda Quijano said that curriculum details would still be fleshed out. What will be announced Tuesday, Quijano said, would include the chosen 12-year model, identify where the additional two years would be added and detail how the cycle extension would be paced. ?At least we will see where the years will be added, like will we have a Grade 7 or will it be a linear system? It?s possible also that we will see the advantages and disadvantages of the models we considered, which model will give the most benefit,? she said. Public consultations will then ensue, officials said. Juan Miguel Luz, a former education undersecretary closely involved in the K+12 draft, said the extended cycle aimed to give students more time to study a curriculum that was crammed in the current 10 years. ?The biggest resource you are adding is time. Ten years is not enough. If we?re so smart going to 10, how come we?re not rich? How come we?re not more successful? We?ve fooled ourselves into thinking we can do it in 10 years,? Luz said. Under the present system, Filipinos have to learn 20 percent more worth of lessons per year than children their age in other countries. RP left behind The Philippines is the only country with a 10-year cycle, according to UNESCO. One only has to see public school students? achievement test scores to see that our system has failed the Filipino student, said Dina Ocampo, associate dean at the University of the Philippines College of Education. ?If you look at the data, achievement scores are very low. So if you think about it, it?s really not working. We can?t keep it as it is because the curriculum is too crammed,? Ocampo said. Education Undersecretary Alberto Muyot said the scores were ?really scary.? Average National Achievement Test (NAT) scores of elementary school students are at a failing 64 percent. The number further slides in high school, with the national average at 46 percent. Filipino students fade even deeper into the background on the international stage, as reflected in results of the 2003 TIMMS (Trends in International Math and Science Study).

Results of the test, taken by second year high school students, placed the country 41st among 45 participating countries, lagging at the bottom with African countries. Filipino students scored an average 35 percent, barely above students from Ghana and Botswana. No budget allocation Muyot admitted that the DepEd did not specify allocations for K+12 in its proposed budget for next year because the program would be in a transition stage. ?It doesn?t mean that by next year, fourth year students will go to fifth year. There?s going to be a long transition,? he said. The budget department, in fact, has slashed DepEd?s original budget proposal of P300 billion to P207 million. The Philippine Business for Education (PBEd), an education reform group closely involved in the K+12 draft, estimates that the extension will cost between P56 billion and P65 billion a year for additional classrooms and teachers, according to its president, Chito Salazar. Another hurdle is an amendment of the education law, which mandates government to fund public education for ?six or seven grades, including preschool? in elementary and four years of high school. ?Every time you amend a law, it takes forever and ever,? Isagani Cruz, former education undersecretary and a K+12 consultant, said at a forum last week. Minimal funding Salazar believes the need for major funding and an amendment of the education law won?t be necessary during the transition years. ?If ever, it will be extremely minimal and might only need redirection,? Salazar told the Inquirer. ?In all the models I?ve seen, the additional 12th year will not be in place until, at the earliest, four to six years down the line,? he said. Salazar said private colleges and universities had expressed support of K+12 in spite of concerns that adding years would result in zero high school graduates, and thus college entrants, at certain years. ?We?re all looking for ways that will be least disruptive on the system.... There will be no blank years. We also don?t want to hurt the tertiary institutions,? Salazar said. K+12 wont happen until after Aquino term By Tarra Quismundo Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 03:43:00 10/06/2010

Filed Under: Education MANILA, Philippines?The K+12 is going to be K+6+4+2. Simply put, there will be six years of elementary school, four years of junior high school and two years of senior high school. That was the plan that the Department of Education (DepEd) unveiled Tuesday to put the country?s basic education up to speed with the rest of the world, meaning 12 years from the current 10 years. It?s not going to happen though until the Aquino administration?s term is over in 2016, when funding and transition measures are put in place, DepEd officials said. Education Secretary Armin Luistro unveiled the 12-year model called K-6-4-2, the basic education cycle the department had been working on to fulfill a campaign promise by President Benigno Aquino III, to coincide with World Teachers? Day. The program includes, not counting kindergarten, six years in elementary (Grades 1 to 6), four years in junior high school (Grades 7 to 10) and the additional two years in senior high (Grades 11 to 12) for specialized learning of employable skills. The DepEd plans to create a K+12 Task Force, chaired by the department but with representation from different stakeholders, to flesh out details of the program?s phased implementation. 4-year transition Curiously, Mr. Aquino did not mention the plan when he spoke before some 5,000 teachers earlier Tuesday. As the implementation plan integrates a four-year transition program, the first batch of senior high school students is expected to be in the system by school year 2016-2017, officials said. ?The two years of senior high school intend to provide time for students to consolidate acquired academic skills and competencies. The curriculum will allow specialization in science and technology, music and arts, agriculture and fisheries, sports, business and entrepreneurship,? Luistro said in a news conference. Planned since 1925 Citing the dismal performance of Filipino graduates, Luistro said the program hoped to lift the quality of Philippine education to international standards and graduate 18-year-olds holistically mature for employment. This plan has been on the drawing boards since 1925, Luistro said.

The Philippines now is the only country in Asia with a 10-year education cycle, he said, falling behind compliance with international accords on education equivalency. ?We envision that our graduates will acquire mastery of basic competencies, be more emotionally mature, be socially aware, proactive and involved in public and civic affairs and be adequately prepared for the world of work, entrepreneurship or higher education, and be legally employable for better earnings,? Luistro said. Luistro?s announcement capped two months of discussions with academics, education reform advocates and DepEd officials and marked the start of regional consultations that would culminate in a national summit early next year. Law amendment Government will then decide whether to pursue the plan, which officials said would also require the amendment of a 1982 law fixing basic education to at most 11 years. Critics argued that the two-year extension was premature given the still unresolved shortages in classrooms, study materials, teachers and other resources, along with a high dropout rate. K+12 supporters said that the extended cycle aimed to give students more time to study a curriculum that was crammed in the current 10 years. ?The biggest resource you are adding is time. Ten years is not enough. If we?re so smart going to 10, how come we?re not rich? How come we?re not more successful? We?ve fooled ourselves into thinking we can do it in 10 years,? said former Education Undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz. Under the present system, Filipinos have to learn 20 percent more worth of lessons per year than children their age in other countries, he said. Filipinos in general score dismally in achievement tests, and in international exams in math and science. Not a final plan According to DepEd?s implementation plan, 2011 will be a year spent on consultations, finetuning the initial draft and making a decision on whether or not to go ahead with the program based on public pulse, Luistro said. By school year 2012-2013, students entering Grade 1 in elementary and first year in high school will be the first batches of 12-year cycle students. Other students already midstream will no longer be affected by the extension, said Education Undersecretary Yolanda Quijano. ?It is not a final plan. We will go to different regions and consult as much as possible. I don?t imagine that this plan is perfect, but it is a plan that is realistic enough, affordable and could bring different groups, different parties together,? Luistro said.

Undersecretary for Finance and Administration Francisco Varela said the estimated cost of additional classrooms and furniture was P44 billion. Another P15.1 billion will pay for additional teachers, P216 million textbooks and P1.8 billion on school maintenance and operations. Savings for parents The total amount is close to an estimate made by the Philippine Business for Education, a K+12 advocate that estimated a total cost (not annual as earlier reported) of between P56 billion and P65 billion for the construction of additional infrastructure. Luistro said parents worried at the added expense should look at how the program could save them on college tuition. ?This is minus two instead of plus two. Parents spend for at least four years of college before they can have an employable child. In effect, look at it at the other point view, parents are actually saving two years of college education,? said Luistro. ?The benefits of the K+12 proposal far outweigh the additional costs that will be incurred by both government and families,? he said. Asked if the additional of two years in high school will result in zero enrollment in college at certain years, Luistro said this was being threshed out in DepEd?s implementation plan

DepEd's K+12 plan: Learning from the Netherlands

By Dheza Marie Aguilar, ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau Posted at 11/17/2010 3:05 PM | Updated as of 11/17/2010 8:13 PM NETHERLANDS - Time and money. These are the two main issues why a lot of Filipinos, lawmakers, parents and students alike, are questioning the feasibility of the K+12 proposal of the Department of Education (DepEd). Many believe that adding 2 more years to basic education will be more expensive, both for government and the parents, and will take additional years away from students, which they can otherwise use in looking for a job. While Oscar Saez, member of the Presidential Task Force on Education and President of Business Outsourcing Association of the Philippines, admits that it is a Herculean task to pass and implement the K+12 proposal, it actually targets to solve, in the long run, these problems. Parents will have to spend less money in sending their children to school, and graduates will easily get a job in a shorter period of time.

The K+12 proposal will involve a complete overhaul of the educational system in the country, from adding two years to the basic education, re-training of the teachers, increasing the number of classrooms, acquiring new software and knowledge from other countries and involving companies into providing the right kind of jobs for new graduates. The prospective is that we need an education reform. If we dont do this, in the long term, many of our graduates will continue to fail relative to the other students in other countries competing with the Philippines for the same talent. This is a good step in improving the competitiveness of the Philippines in the area of skills and workforce development, said Saez in an exclusive interview with Balitang Europe in the Netherlands. Targeting skills gaps According to Saez, there are three main things that are missing from our graduates. These are communication skills, not only in English but in effectively communicating ideas across in a professional and persuasive way, critical thinking in solving complex issues and the level of maturity of students towards the appreciation and love for their country. To achieve these, Saez said the government should be committed not only in terms of budget allocation but in carrying out the implementation of the reform. This means bringing in new technology and knowledge from other countries, and changing the methodology of teaching in the country which has been very structural or lecture-type from the beginning. The K+12 educational reform proposal has a budget requirement of approximately P200 billion, which will be implemented throughout a 4-year period. You dont have to spend the additional P200 billion in one year. If you can get a grant plus regular government budget, mga 50 or less billion pesos a year you will be able to implement, said Saez. The reform, he added, will also be gradually implemented in 4 years to avoid colleges and universities from closing down due to lack of enrollments. More years in high school Cora Dee, former professor and lecturer at the Ateneo de Davao University and Erasmus University in the Netherlands, supports the proposal of increasing years in the basic education in the Philippines. According to her, adhering to the international standard of education is the only way that the Filipinos can compete even more in the global work field. She also agrees that a lengthened educational system will be more economical for parents. Whether we like it or not, the world has become so small that wherever you are, there are Filipinos all over the world. Kung mag-improve and educational system natin, all the more na magiging competitive tayo hindi lamang sa ibang bansa ngunit pwede din natin itong gamitin sa ating bansa, said Dee.

But as opposed to the one year additional in elementary and one year in high school, Dee thinks that it is better to increase the years in high school all together. She said that the Philippines can be inspired by the Dutch, 9th in the rank of best educational system in the world by the Program for International Student Assessment. In the Netherlands high school education is divided into 4, 5 or 6 years based on the skills and abilities of the students, from vocational study, applied or technical courses and research or scientific field, respectively. The type of high school that a student will go to is determined by their performances in the elementary level. According to Dee, focusing and developing the specific skills of students in high school will make them perform better in the tertiary level. This will also help students and parents on deciding whether to pursue a degree which will take a longer period of time or finishing a study that will give them jobs at the soonest possible time like vocational and technical education. Mixed reactions Filipino students in the Netherlands have mixed reactions to the proposed educational reform. Mylene Abarquez, a student from Mindoro who migrated to Canada, experienced first-hand the disadvantage of the 10-year basic education system that the Philippines currently has. When she was applying for a course in the university, she had to take two additional years of high school in order to qualify for university. This is why she supports the K+12 proposal. I think it is a very good proposal. But in my experience, dapat two years na lang iyong high school. Sa atin kasi, all the subjects are given na ng teacher. When I was in Vancouver, dahil gusto kong maging nurse, I have to choose more sciences na classes so its up to me kung alin ang kukuhanin kong pre-requisites sa college, said Abarquez. But more than the reform, Abarquez thinks that the government should focus more on giving the teachers a bigger salary and more incentives. She said that if the teachers are more motivated to educate, a better quality of education will follow. Another student from The Hague University, Queenly Tolentino, believes that educational reforms will put the Philippines at par with global standards. Ang labanan kasi ngayon intense na eh. Since ang Pilipinas 10-year pa rin ang education, left behind na tayo. Kailangan dagdagan nila para internationally competitive tayo, she said. Tolentino also opposes the current lecture-type of teaching in the country. She said that this does not really enhance the talents and skills of the students. Meanwhile for Mick dela Rosa, another Pinoy student in the Netherlands taking up International Business and Management Studies, the money that will be spent on educational reform should instead be put to improving teaching conditions like more classrooms and books.

Sa tingin ko hindi na. Yong curriculum na meron tayo, ok na eh. Sa implementation ang nagiging problema. Kahit napa-ideal ng curriculum once ilagay mo na sa sistema, wala kang enough na facility hindi din magagamit, said dela Rosa. Despite differences in opinions, these students believe that the Aquino government should focus on improving the educational system in the country, whether through educational reform or improved facilities and benefits for teachers

DepEd to release initial draft of K+12 program on Oct. 5

October 1, 2010 6:57 am MANILA, Sept. 30 The Department of Education (DepEd) is confident of winning the sceptics of the proposed additional two years to the current 10-year basic education curriculum as it holds consultations with various stakeholders preparatory to the release of the initial draft of the program. Education Secretary Armin Luistro said the initial draft of the proposed program, dubbed K+12, would be on Oct. 5, in time for the World Teachers Day celebration. Though he acknowledged the opposition of some sectors to the K+12, Luistro insisted the programs viability, adding that it would be implemented before the term of President Benigno Noynoy Aquino III ends on 2016. Certainly, we want to start it as soon as possible. We want to start it during the term of the President, Luistro said in an interview after he spoke at the 3rd NOTED National Tri-Level Conference of Teachers and Educators at the University of Asia and the Pacific in Ortigas Center, Pasig City. Luistro said the program is less disruptive, affordable and realistic. The K+12 is a product of all the studies and consultations conducted by the department since 1995. I am confident on October 5 the model, the official DepEd model will be a fruit of all this studies and discussion. On October 5 with prayers and the power of idea, we will win over the sceptics. If you are looking for what is needed for life skills, for parental obligations and skills for the industry, this is it, he said. The DepEd chief said all he asked of the critics is openness in the discussion of the controversial issue, which has polarized the education sector with one group believing that the government should focus its resources on addressing problems such as lack of classrooms, textbooks and teachers to the supporters of a 12-year basic education curriculum.

Luistro has repeatedly touted the benefits of the plan in the face of criticism, saying it will help equip high school graduates, especially those who may not be able to pursue college education, with the skills necessary for them to land a job and lead productive lives. One of the basic deficiencies of the current 10-year education program is that a high school diploma is really respected as a way, as a passport to a respectable employment, Luistro said earlier. He said the program, the centerpiece of the Aquino administrations effort to address shortcomings in the countrys education sector, would provide learning and life skills to adults so that they can start working and lead respectable lives in the community. The official said this would be done through substantial changes in the curriculum to address the problem brought by the low number of graduates in the basic education system who managed to enter and finish college and gain meaningful employment. Luistro said he want an enhanced curriculum with the end product of making sure that graduates have the required competencies. Citing statistics gathered by the department, including previous studies, Luistro said only 66 percent of the total high school population managed to graduate with only 27 percent enrolling in college or university and a dismal 16 percent completing tertiary education. Several education experts have voiced their opposition to the plan during last Tuesdays consultative meeting held at the DepEd main office. Ateneo De Manila University (AdMU) president Fr. Bienvenido Nebres said the government should defer the implementation of the plan until it addresses the various problems facing the countrys basic education sector. Although it sounds nice but when you get to the ground, it is not well-received. We should keep the ten years and fixed the problems first, Nebres said. Worse, he said the program may even distract the government from focusing on resolving the lack of school rooms, toilets and other facilities, teachers and textbooks. Nebres further argued that adding two more years to schooling may result to more children unable to complete schooling. He cited a report conducted by the Presidential Task Force on Education (PTFE) that the plan may only benefit 20 to 30 percent of school children. The PTFE is a multi-sectoral body created by then president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last year to come up measures on how to upgrade the quality of Philippine basic and higher education.

Another participant in the meeting, former Senator and now president of the University of the Philippines Preparatory School Nikki Coseteng echoed the same concerns. Can we just fix first what we needed to fix first not with rocket science but with basic tools because adding two more years will not fix the mess we are currently in, Coseteng said. Its nice in a Powerpoint presentation but I suggest the DepEd should resolve the problems of today and then we decided later, she said. Former Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Chairman Emmanuel Angeles also said that putting in additional years should be done not in the basic education but instead a preuniversity scheme should take its place since it is doable, practical and advantageous to the government. Angeles said adding two more years to the elementary and secondary education will cost the government an additional P57 billion while the pre-university scheme will cost only P11.5 billion since there are facilities, adequate number of faculty and learning materials in the higher education compared to the former. (PNA) RMA/HCT n his MINI CRITIQUE column that appears in The Philippine Star, October 14, 2010, Isagani Cruz summarized the following pros and cons on the K+12 debate: The PROS (which is basically the side of the government, well-heeled and articulate leaders from the academe, the business community and the media): 1. Enhancing the quality of basic education in the Philippines is urgent and critical. 2. The poor quality of basic education is reflected in the low achievement scores of Filipino students. One reason is that students do not get adequate instructional time or time on task. 3. International test results consistently show Filipino students lagging way behind practically everybody else in the world. In the 2008 mathematics exam, for example, we came in dead last. 4. The congested curriculum partly explains the present state of education. Twelve years of content are crammed into ten years. 5. This quality of education is reflected in the inadequate preparation of high school graduates for the world of work or entrepreneurship or higher education. If ten years were adequate, how come employers do not hire fresh high school graduates? How come most high school graduates flunk the UPCAT? 6. Most graduates are too young to enter the labor force. Since most children start Grade 1 when they are 6 years old, they do not reach the legal employable age of 18 when they graduate from high school today. 7. The current system also reinforces the misperception that basic education is just a preparatory step for higher education. Why prioritize the minority of high school graduates that go to college? 8. The short duration of the basic education program also puts the millions of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), especially the professionals, and those who intend to study

abroad, at a disadvantage. Our graduates are not automatically recognized as professionals abroad. The best examples are our engineering graduates, who are condemned to international jobs not befitting their professional status due to our not having a 12-year basic education cycle. 9. The short basic education program affects the human development of the Filipino children. If we believe that 17-year-old high school graduates are emotionally, psychologically, and intellectually mature, why do we require them to get parental consent before they get married? The CONS (which are basically the madlang people whose pocketbooks would be adversely impacted by the proposed additional 2 years of basic education): 1. Parents have to shell out more money (for transportation and food) for the education of their children. 2. The government does not have the money to pay for two more years of free education, since it does not even have the money to fully support todays ten years. DepEd must first solve the lack of classrooms, furniture and equipment, qualified teachers, and error-free textbooks. 3. We can do in ten years what everyone else in the world takes 12 years to do. Why do we have to follow what the rest of the world is doing? We are better than all of them. Filipinos right now are accepted in prestigious graduate schools in the world, even with only ten years of basic education. 4. As far as the curriculum is concerned, DepEd should fix the current subjects instead of adding new ones. The problem is the content, not the length, of basic education. As an editorial put it, we need to have better education, not more education. 5. A high school diploma will not get anybody anywhere, because business firms will not hire fresh high school graduates. 6. Every family dreams of having a child graduate from college. 7. While students are stuck in Grades 11 and 12, colleges and universities will have no freshmen for two years. This will spell financial disaster for many private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). 8. The drop-out rate will increase because of the two extra years. The government has not yet shown the arguments of the opposition to be fallacious, writes Cruz. On the other hand, Cruz characterizes the opposition (anti) as being very vocal airing its arguments not only in newspapers, on radio, and on television, but even in the parliament of the streets. As of this writing, Cruz writes, I have not heard the opposition rebut the arguments of the government. In fact, as far as I can see, they have refused to even listen to the government. Since this is a public debate, Cruz contends that we have to move from constructive speeches to rebuttal.

I think we really dont have a compelling need to listen to rebuttals. Enough yakety yak already! What we need are objective, actual (empirical) cost-benefit and pedagogical studies to support or debunk the claims of either side. A promising start would be to read Length of School Cycle and the Quality of Education written by Felipe & Porio published in the Philippine Education Research Journal (PERJ). Civil disobedience still a CBCP option Bishops say they have moral authority to call for By Jocelyn Uy, Christine Avendao Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 00:44:00 10/04/2010 Filed Under: Churches (organisations), Government, Conflicts (general), Family planning, Legislation MANILA, Philippines?As Church and State moved to avert a collision, Catholic bishops Sunday said civil disobedience remained ?a moral option? for Catholics if the Aquino administration pushed for the distribution of artificial contraceptives to couples who want to use them. The bishops said they had the moral authority to call for such an action if the government promoted an action contrary to the teachings of the Church. ?The Catholic Church in the Philippines can do that if it decides to do that because for one thing, civil disobedience is a moral option, one of the moral options,? said Msgr. Juanito Figura, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops? Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). Figura made the statement in an interview with the CBCP News, the official news service of the Church hierarchy. His remarks were posted on the CBCP website under the headline: ?Church leaders say ?civil disobedience? a possibility.? First time In the same article, the CBCP media director, Msgr. Pedro Quitorio, said that in the history of the CBCP, the first and only time the Church had called for civil disobedience was following the snap presidential election in February 1986. Fraud in the polls sparked the overthrow of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in a People Power Revolution. ?Since the CBCP was established in 1945 until today, [it] was just the single event that called for civil disobedience,? Quitorio said. The CBCP News posted the remarks of Figura and Quitorio a day after Mr. Aquino said he had met with some bishops to discuss the controversy and another meeting with them was in the works. CBCP officials said they were also open to talks with him.

Civil disobedience is a nonviolent form of protest in which people deliberately violate a law. It can be carried out in many ways, such as nonpayment of taxes, boycotts, strikes, or sit-ins. Gandhi, Luther King History has shown many examples of civil disobedience. In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi and his followers defied the British Salt Acts, which forced Indians to buy salt from the British. In 1955, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks launched civil disobedience, including boycotts of buses, to fight for African-American civil rights. In 1986, Mr. Aquino?s mother, the late President Cory Aquino, herself led a civil disobedience protest and boycott of crony-owned companies in a campaign to topple the Marcos dictatorship. The family planning row erupted after Mr. Aquino said during a recent visit to the United States that he might extend assistance to couples who preferred to use artificial contraceptives to limit the number of their children. A Palace official later said that contraceptives were already being made available to the poor in local health centers and that the government had also allotted to it a portion of the proposed 2011 budget. Church officials say contraception is a type of abortion, which the Church says is a grave crime and is banned by the Constitution. ?Bishops have moral reason? Figura explained that civil allegiance ?is the respect given by the people to the state and the laws of the state and according to Church principles, we should do that.? ?But according to the same Church principles, if a law or a state policy is against Christian teachings, persons, Christians, Catholics are not bound by conscience to obey that,? he added, citing this as the foundation of civil disobedience. ?When a law or state policy or state program is not in consonance with what the faith teaches so from that perspective, if the local church in the Philippines or the hierarchy in the Philippines decide to call for disobedience because of this possibility of enacting the controversial reproductive health bill and the distribution of artificial contraceptives, the bishops would have a moral reason to do that.? While Catholic lay groups were poised to stage protests in the coming weeks against the Aquino administration, Quitorio said the bishops as a body ?have not called for any mass actions so far.? On Friday, the CBCP president, Bishop Nereo Odchimar, said the Church wanted to address reproductive health issues ?in the spirit of dialogue and not of confrontation.?

Odchimar, who had said that excommunication of Mr. Aquino was ?a possibility,? later said the Church was not contemplating that action. ?We favor no method? Malacaang on Sunday tried to dismiss perceptions that it favored artificial contraceptives as the sole family planning method. ?We are not advocating one (family planning) method over the other,? said deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte. ?We will support all family planning methods that couples will choose after getting information about them,? Valte added. ?So it?s not right to say that the position of the President is prolife or antilife or whatever. He is for responsible parenthood.? Valte made the statement when asked about Pampanga Archbishop Paciano Aniceto?s call for Mr. Aquino to emulate the example of his late mother. Aniceto said Cory Aquino listened to the Church during her presidency. Valte said the Palace recognized there were issues it would confront that would either be supported or opposed by people. ?The government will do the right thing for the benefit of the majority,? she said. Too soon Sen. Joker Arroyo said it was not only too soon for the Church to oppose the moves in Congress to adopt an RH measure but that taking a hardline stance could ?boomerang? on its leaders. ?The opposition against the RH is too premature, a hearing has yet to be held and they are already against it. The Church and President Aquino are already fighting over it when we don?t even know the final form of the bill being pushed. It?s not even on first base,? Arroyo said. He said this would be the third time that Church and State had squared off on a major issue?the first was during the Commonwealth era when then President Manuel L. Quezon thumbed down a proposal to make religious instruction compulsory. He said the second was in the post-war Congress when Congress proposed to have Jose Rizal?s novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo a required reading in school. Arroyo said the Church could lose a lot of ground among its followers, especially if it would lose on the reproductive health bill issue after fighting it tooth and nail. A House lawmaker pushing for bills on reproductive health is open to a dialogue with Church officials, but wants the latter to submit their counterproposal.

?Let them make a counterproposal to the bill so that there will be an end to the debate,? Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin said by phone. ?If they have questions about certain aspects of the bill, we will explain it to them.? With reports from Gil C. Cabacungan Jr., TJ Burgonio and Inquirer Research
For other uses, see Civil disobedience (disambiguation).

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a figure known worldwide for advocating non-violent civil disobedience.

Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always,[1][2] defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance. In one view (in India, known as ahimsa or satyagraha) it could be said that it is compassion in the form of respectful disagreement. One of its earliest massive implementations was brought about by Egyptians against the British occupation in the 1919 Revolution.[3] Civil disobedience is one of the many ways people have rebelled against what they deem to be unfair laws. It has been used in many nonviolent resistance movements in India (Gandhi's campaigns for independence from the British Empire), in Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution and in East Germany to oust their communist governments,[4][5] in South Africa in the fight against apartheid, in the American Civil Rights Movement, in the Singing Revolution to bring independence to the Baltic countries from the Soviet Union, recently with the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and the 2004 Orange Revolution[6] in Ukraine, among other various movements worldwide. One of the oldest depictions of civil disobedience is in Sophocles' play Antigone, in which Antigone, one of the daughters of former King of Thebes, Oedipus, defies Creon, the current King of Thebes, who is trying to stop her from giving her brother Polynices a proper burial. She

gives a stirring speech in which she tells him that she must obey her conscience rather than human law. She is not at all afraid of the death he threatens her with (and eventually carries out), but she is afraid of how her conscience will smite her if she does not do this.[7] Following the Peterloo massacre of 1819, poet Percy Shelley wrote the political poem The Mask of Anarchy later that year, that begins with the images of what he thought to be the unjust forms of authority of his timeand then imagines the stirrings of a new form of social action. It is perhaps the first modern[vague] statement of the principle of nonviolent protest.[8] A version was taken up by the author Henry David Thoreau in his essay Civil Disobedience, and later by Gandhi in his doctrine of Satyagraha.[8] Gandhi's Satyagraha was partially influenced and inspired by Shelley's nonviolence in protest and political action.[9] In particular, it is known that Gandhi would often quote Shelley's Masque of Anarchy to vast audiences during the campaign for a free India.[8][10] Thoreau's 1848 essay Civil Disobedience, originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government", has had a wide influence on many later practitioners of civil disobedience. The driving idea behind the essay is that citizens are morally responsible for their support of aggressors, even when such support is required by law. In the essay, Thoreau explained his reasons for having refused to pay taxes as an act of protest against slavery and against the Mexican-American War. He writes, "If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, 'I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico; see if I would go'; and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute."

Contents
[hide]

1 Usage of the term 2 Theories o 2.1 Violent vs. nonviolent o 2.2 Revolutionary vs. nonrevolutionary o 2.3 Collective vs. solitary 3 Techniques o 3.1 Choice of specific act o 3.2 Cooperation with authorities o 3.3 Choice of plea 4 Legal implications of civil disobedience 5 Bibliography 6 See also 7 Notes 8 External links

[edit] Usage of the term

Henry David Thoreau's classic essay Civil Disobedience inspired Martin Luther King and many other activists.

Thoreau's 1849 essay "Resistance to Civil Government" was eventually renamed "Essay on Civil Disobedience." After his landmark lectures were published in 1866, the term began to appear in numerous sermons and lectures relating to slavery and the war in Mexico.[11][12][13][14] Thus, by the time Thoreau's lectures were first published under the title "Civil Disobedience," in 1866, four years after his death, the term had achieved fairly widespread usage.

It has been argued that the term "civil disobedience" has always suffered from ambiguity and in modern times, become utterly debased. Marshall Cohen notes, "It has been used to describe everything from bringing a test-case in the federal courts to taking aim at a federal official. Indeed, for Vice President Agnew it has become a code-word describing the activities of muggers, arsonists, draft evaders, campaign hecklers, campus militants, anti-war demonstrators, juvenile delinquents and political assassins."[15] LeGrande writes that "the formulation if a single all-encompassing definition of the term is extremely difficult, if not impossible. In reviewing the voluminous literature on the subject, the student of civil disobedience rapidly finds himself surrounded by a maze of semantical problems and grammatical niceties. Like Alice in Wonderland, he often finds that specific terminology has no more (or no less) meaning than the individual orator intends it to have." He encourages a distinction between lawful protest demonstration, nonviolent civil disobedience, and violent civil disobedience.[16] In a letter to P.K.Rao, dated September 10, 1935, Gandhi disputes that his idea of civil disobedience was derived from the writings of Thoreau:[17]

The statement that I had derived my idea of Civil Disobedience from the writings of Thoreau is wrong. The resistance to authority in South Africa was well advanced before I got the essay ... When I saw the title of Thoreau's great essay, I began to use his phrase to explain our struggle to the English readers. But I found that even "Civil Disobedience" failed to convey the full meaning of the struggle. I therefore adopted the phrase "Civil Resistance."

[edit] Theories
In seeking an active form of civil disobedience, one may choose to deliberately break certain laws, such as by forming a peaceful blockade or occupying a facility illegally, though sometimes violence has been known to occur. Protesters practice this non-violent form of civil disorder with the expectation that they will be arrested. Others also expect to be attacked or even beaten by the authorities. Protesters often undergo training in advance on how to react to arrest or to attack, so that they will do so in a manner that quietly or limply resists without threatening the authorities. Mahatma Gandhi outlined several rules for civil resisters (or satyagrahi) in the time when he was leading India in the struggle for Independence from the British Empire. For instance, they were to express no anger, never retaliate, submit to the opponent's orders and assaults, submit to arrest by the authorities, surrender personal property when confiscated by the authorities but refuse to surrender property held in trust, refrain from swearing and insults (which are contrary to ahimsa), refrain from saluting the Union flag, and protect officials from insults and assaults even at the risk of the resister's own life. Civil disobedience is usually defined as pertaining to a citizen's relation to the state and its laws, as distinguished from a constitutional impasse in which two public agencies, especially two equally sovereign branches of government, conflict. For instance, if the head of government of a country were to refuse to enforce a decision of that country's highest court, it would not be civil

disobedience, since the head of government would be acting in his capacity as public official rather than private citizen.[18] Ronald Dworkin held that there are three types of civil disobedience:

"Integrity-based" civil disobedience occurs when a citizen disobeys a law he feels is immoral, as in the case of northerners disobeying the fugitive slave laws by refusing to turn over escaped slaves to authorities. "Justice-based" civil disobedience occurs when a citizen disobeys laws in order to lay claim to some right denied to him, as when blacks illegally protested during the Civil Rights Movement. "Policy-based" civil disobedience occurs when a person breaks the law in order to change a policy (s)he believes is dangerously wrong.[19]

Some theories of civil disobedience hold that civil disobedience is only justified against governmental entities. Brownlee argues that disobedience in opposition to the decisions of nongovernmental agencies such as trade unions, banks, and private universities can be justified if it reflects "a larger challenge to the legal system that permits those decisions to be taken". The same principle, she argues, applies to breaches of law in protest against international organizations and foreign governments.[20] It is usually recognized that lawbreaking, if it is not done publicly, at least must be publicly announced in order to constitute civil disobedience.[21] But Stephen Eilmann argues that if it is necessary to disobey rules that conflict with morality, we might ask why disobedience should take the form of public civil disobedience rather than simply covert lawbreaking. If a lawyer wishes to help a client overcome legal obstacles to securing his natural rights, he might, for instance, find that assisting in fabricating evidence or committing perjury is more effective than open disobedience. This assumes that common morality does not have a prohibition on deceit in such situations.[22] The Fully Informed Jury Association's publication "A Primer for Prospective Jurors" notes, "Think of the dilemma faced by German citizens when Hitler's secret police demanded to know if they were hiding a Jew in their house."[23] By this definition, civil disobedience could be traced back to the Book of Exodus, where Shiphrah and Puah refused a direct order of Pharaoh but misrepresented how they did it. (Exodus 1: 15-19)
[edit] Violent vs. nonviolent

There has been some debate as to whether civil disobedience need be non-violent. Black's Law Dictionary includes nonviolence in its definition of civil disobedience. Christian Bay's encyclopedia article states that civil disobedience requires "carefully chosen and legitimate means," but holds that they do not have to be nonviolent.[24] It has been argued that, while both civil disobedience and civil rebellion are justified by appeal to constitutional defects, rebellion is much more destructive; therefore, the defects justifying rebellion must be much more serious than those justifying disobedience, and if one cannot justify civil rebellion, then one cannot justify a civil disobedients' use of force and violence and refusal to submit to arrest. Civil disobedients' refraining from violence is also said to help preserve society's tolerance of civil disobedience.[25] But McCloskey argues that "if violent, intimidatory, coercive disobedience is

more effective, it is, other things being equal, more justified than less effective, nonviolent disobedience."[26]
[edit] Revolutionary vs. nonrevolutionary

Non-revolutionary civil disobedience is a simple disobedience of laws on the grounds that they are judged "wrong" by an individual conscience, or as part of an effort to render certain laws ineffective, to cause their repeal, or to exert pressure to get one's political wishes on some other issue. Revolutionary civil disobedience is more of an active attempt to overthrow a government.[27] Gandhi's acts have been described as revolutionary civil disobedience.[18] It has been claimed that the Hungarians under Ferenc Dek directed revolutionary civil disobedience against the Austrian government.[28] Thoreau also wrote of civil disobedience accomplishing "peaceable revolution."[29]
[edit] Collective vs. solitary

The earliest recorded incidents of collective civil disobedience took place during the Roman Empire. Unarmed Jews gathered in the streets to prevent the installation of pagan images in the Temple in Jerusalem. In modern times, some activists who commit civil disobedience as a group collectively refuse to sign bail until certain demands are met, such as favorable bail conditions, or the release of all the activists. This is a form of jail solidarity.[30] There have also been many instances of solitary civil disobedience, such as that committed by Thoreau, but these sometimes go unnoticed. Thoreau, at the time of his arrest, was not yet a well-known author, and his arrest was not covered in any newspapers in the days, weeks and months after it happened. The tax collector who arrested him rose to higher political office, and Thoreau's essay was not published until after the end of the Mexican War.[31]

[edit] Techniques
Main article: Examples of civil disobedience [edit] Choice of specific act

Tree sitting can be an environmentalist act of civil disobedience.

Civil disobedients have chosen a variety of different illegal acts. Bedau writes, "There is a whole class of acts, undertaken in the name of civil disobedience, which, even if they were widely

practiced, would in themselves constitute hardly more than a nuisance (e.g. trespassing at a nuclear-missile installation)...[S]uch acts are often just a harassment and, at least to the bystander, somewhat inane...[T]he remoteness of the connection between the disobedient act and the objectionable law lays such acts open to the charge of ineffectiveness and absurdity." Bedau also notes, though, that the very harmlessness of such entirely symbolic illegal protests toward public policy goals may serve a propaganda purpose.[28] Some civil disobedients, such as the proprietors of illegal medical cannabis dispensaries and Voice in the Wilderness, which brought medicine to Iraq without the permission of the U.S. Government, directly achieve a desired social goal (such as the provision of medication to the sick) while openly breaking the law. Julia Butterfly Hill lived in Luna, a 180-foot (55 m)-tall, 600-year-old California Redwood tree for 738 days, successfully preventing it from being cut down. In cases where the criminalized behavior is pure speech, civil disobedience can consist simply of engaging in the forbidden speech. An example would be WBAI's broadcasting the track "Filthy Words" from a George Carlin comedy album, which eventually led to the 1978 Supreme Court case of FCC v. Pacifica Foundation. Threatening government officials is another classic way of expressing defiance toward the government and unwillingness to stand for its policies. For example, Joseph Haas was arrested for allegedly sending an email to the Lebanon, New Hampshire city councilors stating, "Wise up or die."[32] More generally, protesters of particular victimless crimes often see fit to openly commit that crime. Laws against public nudity, for instance, have been protested by going naked in public, and laws against cannabis consumption have been protested by openly possessing it and using it at cannabis rallies.[33] Some forms of civil disobedience, such as illegal boycotts, refusals to pay taxes, draft dodging, distributed denial-of-service attacks, and sit-ins, make it more difficult for a system to function. In this way, they might be considered coercive. Brownlee notes that "although civil disobedients are constrained in their use of coercion by their conscientious aim to engage in moral dialogue, nevertheless they may find it necessary to employ limited coercion in order to get their issue onto the table."[20] The Plowshares organization temporarily closed GCSB Waihopai by padlocking the gates and using sickles to deflate one of the large domes covering two satellite dishes. Electronic civil disobedience can include web site defacements, redirects, denial-of-service attacks, information theft, illegal web site parodies, virtual sit-ins, and virtual sabotage. It is distinct from other kinds of hacktivism in that the perpetrator openly reveals his identity. Virtual actions rarely succeed in completely shutting down their targets, but they often generate significant media attention.[34]

[edit] Cooperation with authorities

A police officer speaks with a demonstrator at a union picket, explaining that she will be arrested if she does not leave the street. The demonstrator was peacefully arrested moments later.

Some disciplines of civil disobedience hold that the protestor must submit to arrest and cooperate with the authorities. Others advocate falling limp or otherwise resisting arrest, especially when it will hinder the police from effectively responding to a mass protest. A possible disadvantage of going limp, for those who wish to communicate with the arresting officer about their ideals, is that it may be difficult to do so while being dragged across the ground.[35] Many of the same decisions and principles that apply in other criminal investigations and arrests arise also in civil disobedience cases. For example, the suspect may need to decide whether or not to grant a consent search of his property, and whether or not to talk to police officers. It is generally agreed within the legal community,[36] and is often believed within the activist community, that a suspect's talking to criminal investigators can serve no useful purpose, and may be harmful. However, some civil disobedients have nonetheless found it hard to resist responding to investigators' questions, sometimes due to a lack of understanding of the legal ramifications, or due to a fear of seeming rude.[37] Also, some civil disobedients seek to use the arrest as an opportunity to make an impression on the officers. Thoreau wrote, "My civil neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very man I have to deal with--for it is, after all, with men and not with parchment that I quarrel--and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the government. How shall he ever know well that he is and does as an officer of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to consider whether he will treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace, and see if he can get over this obstruction to his neighborliness without a ruder and more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with his action."[29] Some civil disobedients feel it is incumbent upon them to accept punishment because of their belief in the validity of the social contract, which is held to bind all to obey the laws that a government meeting certain standards of legitimacy has established, or else suffer the penalties set out in the law. Other civil disobedients who favor the existence of government still don't believe in the legitimacy of their particular government, or don't believe in the legitimacy of a particular law it has enacted. And still other civil disobedients, being anarchists, don't believe in

the legitimacy of any government, and therefore see no need to accept punishment for a violation of criminal law that does not infringe the rights of others.
[edit] Choice of plea

An important decision for civil disobedients is whether or not to plead guilty. There is much debate on this point, as some believe that it is a civil disobedient's duty to submit to the punishment prescribed by law, while others believe that defending oneself in court will increase the possibility of changing the unjust law.[38] It has also been argued that either choice is compatible with the spirit of civil disobedience. ACT-UP's Civil Disobedience Training handbook states that a civil disobedient who pleads guilty is essentially stating, "Yes, I committed the act of which you accuse me. I don't deny it; in fact, I am proud of it. I feel I did the right thing by violating this particular law; I am guilty as charged," but that pleading not guilty sends a message of, "Guilt implies wrong-doing. I feel I have done no wrong. I may have violated some specific laws, but I am guilty of doing no wrong. I therefore plead not guilty." A plea of no contest is sometimes regarded as a compromise between the two.[39] One defendant accused of illegally protesting nuclear power, when asked to enter his plea, stated, "I plead for the beauty that surrounds us";[40] this is known as a "creative plea," and will usually be interpreted as a plea of not guilty.[41] Paul Flower writes, "There may be many times when protesters choose to go to jail, as a way of continuing their protest, as a way of reminding their countrymen of injustice. But that is different than the notion that they must go to jail as part of a rule connected with civil disobedience. The key point is that the spirit of protest should be maintained all the way, whether it is done by remaining in jail, or by evading it. To accept jail penitently as an accession to 'the rules' is to switch suddenly to a spirit of subservience, to demean the seriousness of the protest...In particular, the neo-conservative insistence on a guilty plea should be eliminated."[42] Sometimes the prosecution proposes a plea bargain to civil disobedients, as in the case of the Camden 28, in which the defendants were offered an opportunity to plead guilty to one misdemeanor count and receive no jail time.[43] In some mass arrest situations, the activists decide to use solidarity tactics to secure the same plea bargain for everyone.[41] But some activists have opted to enter a blind plea, pleading guilty without any plea agreement in place. Mohandas Gandhi pleaded guilty and told the court, "I am here to . . . submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen."[44]

[edit] Legal implications of civil disobedience

Barkan writes that if defendants plead not guilty, "they must decide whether their primary goal will be to win an acquittal and avoid imprisonment or a fine, or to use the proceedings as a forum to inform the jury and the public of the political circumstances surrounding the case and their reasons for breaking the law via civil disobedience." A technical defense may enhance the chances for acquittal but make for more boring proceedings and reduced press coverage. During the Vietnam War era, the Chicago Eight used a political defense, while Benjamin Spock used a technical defense.[45] In countries such as the United States whose laws guarantee the right to a

jury trial but do not excuse lawbreaking for political purposes, some civil disobedients seek jury nullification. Over the years, this has been made more difficult by court decisions such as Sparf v. United States, which held that the judge need not inform jurors of their nullification prerogative, and United States v. Dougherty, which held that the judge need not allow defendants to openly seek jury nullification. Governments have generally not recognized the legitimacy of civil disobedience or viewed political objectives as an excuse for breaking the law. Specifically, the law usually distinguishes between criminal motive and criminal intent; the offender's motives or purposes may be admirable and praiseworthy, but his intent may still be criminal.[46] Hence the saying that "if there is any possible justification of civil disobedience it must come from outside the legal system."[47] One theory is that, while disobedience may be helpful, any great amount of it would undermine the law by encouraging general disobedience which is neither conscientious nor of social benefit. Therefore, conscientious lawbreakers must be punished.[48] Michael Bayles argues that if a person violates a law in order to create a test case as to the constitutionality of a law, and then wins his case, then that act did not constitute civil disobedience.[49] It has also been argued that breaking the law for self-gratification, as in the case of a homosexual or cannabis user who does not direct his act at securing the repeal of amendment of the law, is not civil disobedience.[50] Likewise, a protestor who attempts to escape punishment by committing the crime covertly and avoiding attribution, or by denying having committed the crime, or by fleeing the jurisdiction, is generally viewed as not being a civil disobedient. Courts have distinguished between two types of civil disobedience: "Indirect civil disobedience involves violating a law which is not, itself, the object of protest, whereas direct civil disobedience involves protesting the existence of a particular law by breaking that law."[51] During the Vietnam War, courts typically refused to excuse the perpetrators of illegal protests from punishment on the basis of their challenging the legality of the Vietnam War; the courts ruled it was a political question.[52] The necessity defense has sometimes been used as a shadow defense by civil disobedients to deny guilt without denouncing their politically motivated acts, and to present their political beliefs in the courtroom.[53] However, court cases such as U.S. v. Schoon have greatly curtailed the availability of the political necessity defense.[54] Likewise, when Carter Wentworth was charged for his role in the Clamshell Alliance's 1977 illegal occupation of the Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant, the judge instructed the jury to disregard his competing harms defense, and he was found guilty.[55] Fully Informed Jury Association activists have sometimes handed out educational leaflets inside courthouses despite admonitions not to; according to FIJA, many of them have escaped prosecution because "prosecutors have reasoned (correctly) that if they arrest fully informed jury leafleters, the leaflets will have to be given to the leafleter's own jury as evidence."[56] Along with giving the offender his just deserts, achieving crime control via incapacitation and deterrence is a major goal of criminal punishment.[57][58] Brownee argues, "Bringing in deterrence at the level of justification detracts from the laws engagement in a moral dialogue with the offender as a rational person because it focuses attention on the threat of punishment and not the moral reasons to follow this law."[20] Leonard Hubert Hoffmann writes, "In deciding

whether or not to impose punishment, the most important consideration would be whether it would do more harm than good. This means that the objector has no right not to be punished. It is a matter for the state (including the judges) to decide on utilitarian grounds whether to do so or not."[59] It has been noted that the poor may have more to lose than the middle class from engagement in civil disobedience. The poor often receive government benefits that could be jeopardized by an arrest, and have prior criminal convictions that could result in harsher punishment. As a result, sometimes the participants in illegal demonstrations against government policies deemed to harm poverty-stricken minorities are predominantly white and middle class.