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Date Posted: 22:29:02 11/19/12 Mon
Author: IMRD
Subject: Nov 20, 2012 news

http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Nation&title=Senate-approves-changes-to-RH-measure&id=61685


Senate approves changes to RH measure

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CHANGES WERE introduced yesterday to the Senate version of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, following the bid of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile to tackle the controversial measure first before other legislation, including the introduction of amendments and approval of the bill raising excise taxes on cigarettes and liquor.
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Voting 11-3, senators green-lit Mr. Enrile’s request to allow him to introduce amendments to Senate Bill No. 2865, a priority measure, after denying allegations of delaying its approval.

"I was perceived as delaying the RH bill, holding it hostage. To put an end to these baseless accusations, I’m ready to present amendments," the Senate leader said in a privilege speech.

Mr. Enrile was reacting to health and demography committee chairman Senator Pilar Juliana "Pia" S. Cayetano’s statement last week that he was delaying the bill’s approval by not presenting amendments.

Among the salient amendments that Mr. Enrile introduced and accepted by the Senate were:

• deletion of the reference to the "International Conference on Population and Development," a United Nations conference that steered a binding document compelling countries to reduce maternal mortality and provide access to reproductive and sexual health services including family planning, among others;

• introduction of a provision guaranteeing "protection, promotion of equal rights of children, youth and the unborn"; and

• defining abortifacients as "any drug or device that induce abortion or the destruction of a fetus inside the mother’s womb."

Following a heated debate on whether legislators should define conception, senators rejected Mr. Enrile’s suggestion that include a provision stating that life begins at fertilization.

Despite strong opposition from Ms. Cayetano, senators, meanwhile, allowed an amendment of Senator Ralph G. Recto striking out the provision on local government responsibility to implement the RH law.

Ms. Cayetano then cited the experience in Manila wherein a city council resolution prohibited the distribution of free contraceptives in local health centers. Manila Mayor Alfredo S. Lim is a known anti-RH advocate.

But Mr. Recto stood firm that Congress cannot "force" local governments on how to use their budget.

Another proposal of Mr. Recto not to compel private health care facilities to provide reproductive health services was also approved.

The Senate afterwards suspended the period of amendments following Senator Franklin M. Drilon’s request that the chamber vote on the "sin" tax bill. Mr. Drilon is acting ways and means committee chairman.

The introduction of amendments to the RH bill hurdled a year of intense debates when the Senate closed interpellations last June.

Ms. Cayetano sponsored the measure a year earlier.

The House of Representatives, meanwhile, is set to discuss a substitute measure that will address concerns on its counterpart proposal, which is also in the period of amendments.

The RH bill has been discussed since the 11th Congress in 1998, but was never passed due to intense lobbying mainly from the Catholic Church. -- Antonio Siegfrid O. Alegado

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