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Date Posted: 18:31:24 11/15/12 Thu
Author: IMRD
Subject: Nov 16, 2012

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/307748/big-business-backs-rh-bill

Big business backs RH bill
5 groups sign manifesto of support
By Philip C. Tubeza
Philippine Daily Inquirer
12:10 am | Friday, November 16th, 2012
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The country’s biggest business organizations on Thursday threw their support behind the Aquino administration in its efforts to give Filipinos universal access to family planning services.
And they’re willing to put their money where their mouths are.
At the Summit on Family Planning in the Business Sector, representatives of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), Employment Confederation of the Philippines (Ecop), Makati Business Club (MBC), Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) and Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) signed a “manifesto of support” calling for a national modern family planning program.
The business groups also promised to “mobilize investments for family planning and other reproductive health services” and implement family planning programs for the poor as part of their corporate social responsibility.
“We, the participants… declare our commitment and support to national efforts toward ensuring universal access to family planning in the advancement of reproductive rights of poor women,” the declaration said.
It advocated the enactment of national reproductive health and population management policy and programs and “allocation of funds for the implementation of this vital policy.”
The declaration also called for “accelerating the reduction of the unmet needs for family planning and in ensuring the promotion of informed choice, universal coverage and delivery of quality (family planning) information and services.”
Among those present at the summit held at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City were former Prime Minister Cesar Virata, former Foreign Secretary Roberto Romulo, former Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral, former Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno, Health Undersecretary Teodoro Herbosa, United Nations Population Fund country representative Ugochi Daniels and UK Ambassador Stephen Lillie.
“I think it would be appropriate to give you a quote—I assure you it’s a quote; I’m not plagiarizing—from (the late US President) John F. Kennedy who said ‘Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country,” Romulo said in his welcome remarks.
“I think this sums up what you can do for the country,” added Romulo, chairman of the Zuellig Family Foundation.
It was a dig at Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, who is facing an ethics complaint for quoting without attribution material from the speech of the late US Sen. Robert Kennedy and other foreign works in three speeches against the reproductive health (RH) bill pending in the Senate.
Diokno called on President Aquino to be more passionate in pushing for the passage of the RH bill.
“I hate to say this but it is in (Mr. Aquino’s) hands. If he is as passionate as he was in the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona, he could have this done,” Diokno said.

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/11/15/12/business-groups-back-rh-bill

Business groups back RH bill
By Sheila Crisostomo, The Philippine Star
Posted at 11/16/2012 1:05 AM | Updated as of 11/16/2012 8:27 AM
MANILA, Philippines - Major business groups yesterday signed a “Manifesto of Support” for family planning programs aimed at advancing the “reproductive rights of poor women.”
Their declaration of support for family planning was in response to a challenge from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which underscored that family planning is a good investment that can yield “unprecedented reward for economic development.”
The signing of the manifesto came at a time when Congress appeared to be dragging its feet in finalizing a Reproductive Health bill.
The six groups are the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Employer’s Confederation of the Philippines, Makati Business Club, Management Association of the Philippines, Financial Executives of the Philippines, and Philippine Business for Social Progress.
In the manifesto, they pledged to help women gain greater access to family planning services and information as declared in the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning last July.
They also committed to mobilize investment in family planning and other reproductive health services.
These include provision of family planning services and reproductive health services to employees and their families through the “Family Welfare Program in the workplace as mandated by Article 134 of the Labor Code and other relevant programs; implement FP program in the communities of corporate social responsibility and promote the establishment of FP as a “core business or as a social enterprise to facilitate provision of FP services,” among others.
During the summit, the UNFPA urged the business community to make family planning commodities and services accessible to workers.
UNFPA Country Representative Ugochi Daniels said there were studies showing that investing in FP “helps reduce poverty, improve health, promote gender equality, enable adolescents to finish their schooling and increase labor force participation.”
“Access to FP, which is an essential human right, yields unprecedented reward for economic development. The costs of ignoring that right include poverty, exclusion, poor health and gender inequality,” she said.
Daniels added there is “indisputable evidence that when family planning is integrated into broader economic and social development initiatives, it can have positive multiplier effect on human development and wellbeing of the entire nation.”
Public resources, she said, may never be enough, thus the need to tap alternative sources to ensure that couples would have access to pertinent family planning information and services.
She also cited the London summit last July during which funds were mobilized to make “voluntary family planning services available to 120 more million women in developing nations by the end of the decade.”
“Today, we are replicating that move with the hope of mobilizing the business sector support to provide family planning services in the workplace and in the communities supported by their corporate social responsibility programs. With the Philippines’ employment rate of 97 percent, translated into some 37.5 million workers, the business sector can indeed make a dent in the government’s effort to provide voluntary family planning to a wider population,” Daniels said.
According to Health Undersecretary Dr. Ted Herbosa, around six million Filipino women have “unmet needs for family planning services either for spacing or limiting pregnancies.”
http://manilastandardtoday.com/2012/11/16/cayetano-sets-final-push-for-rh-passage/

Cayetano sets final push for RH passage
By Macon Ramos-Araneta | Posted on Nov. 16, 2012 at 12:01am | 565 views
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Senator Pia Cayetano on Thursday said she would not hesitate to put the reproductive health bill to a vote in her committee to end the period of amendments if Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III continued to stall the proceedings.
At the Kapihan sa Senado forum, Cayetano said she was ready to answer all of Enrile and Sotto’s questions, if they would only make themselves available.
“I will make myself available to Senators Enrile and Sotto. I humbly request that they make themselves available. If not, I will avail of the remedies available to me under the Senate rules,” Cayetano said.
As chairman of the Senate committee on health and sponsor of the RH bill, Cayetano said she can end the period of debates and amendments by a majority vote.
Asked if she thought she had the numbers to prevail, she added: “Do I look like somebody who would threaten something if I don’t have the means to pull it through?”
Discussions on the RH bill have taken a back seat to debates on the substitute sin tax bill that President Benigno Aquino III wants passed.
But Cayetano accused Enrile and Sotto of deliberately stalling the RH debate.
“I know and they know who I’m talking about — their objective is not to bring this to a vote,” she said.
Cayetano said that although Sotto had repeatedly told her that he would no longer seek to question her after delivering four speeches against the RH bill, he was not saying something completely different.
She also said she was disappointed in Enrile for telling her he had no plans to give time to the RH bill. She described this statement as “offensive.”
Cayetano quoted Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago as saying it was “unheard of for a senator to simply say, I will not make time.”
Senators Enrile and Sotto no longer consider women’s needs and rights important, she said.
“I find it offensive that what is considered a human right—access to RH, access to contraceptives, can be put aside in one of the highest government bodies,” said Cayetano. This was an indication they didn’t care for women’s lives, she added.
Cayetano also said senators seeking re-election should not fear a backlash by the Catholic Church because most opinion polls showed a majority of Catholics supporting RH legislation.
Earlier, Enrile said he was prepared for any action Cayetano might take to move the RH bill forward. Saying the bill would be detrimental to the country, Enrile has vowed to block its passage.

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