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Date Posted: 20:04:45 11/20/12 Tue
Author: IMRD
Subject: Nov 21, 2012 news

http://www.malaya.com.ph/index.php/opinion/18136-catholics-for-reproductive-health

Catholics for Reproductive Health
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Published on Wednesday, 21 November 2012 00:00
Written by A.G. ROMUALDEZ
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‘The growing contacts with liberal Catholics has increased the awareness of C4RH members on issues other than reproductive health.’
CATHOLICS for Reproductive Health (aka C4RH) is a civil society organization composed of individuals who identify themselves as Roman Catholics by virtue of their having been baptized as such. When C4RH was formed almost two years ago, its main purpose was to demonstrate that the majority of Catholic Filipinos support legislation mandating government provision of reproductive health information and services to all Filipinos bill despite opposition from the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. Until now, as part of the Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN), the organization’s activities have focused on cooperating with all the other governmental, non-governmental, international, national, and local institutions and agencies in efforts to secure passage of the Reproductive Health Bill. This cause has nevertheless struck a sympathetic cord within other Catholic groups in the country and throughout the world that are aligned with liberally inclined but marginalized individuals among the clergy and even the hierarchy.
The growing contacts with liberal Catholics who are concerned about the dominance of conservative extremists in the leadership structure of their religion has increased the awareness of C4RH members on issues other than reproductive health. Many have come to realize that the unreasonable stubbornness of Church opposition to RH in the Philippines is linked to other problems that obstruct the passage of the Roman Catholic Church into 21st century modernity.
With this in mind, a small group of C4RH members met at the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) compound in Silang, Cavite last weekend for individual and collective reflections on issues that are not directly covered by reproductive health legislation. While the gathering’s theme, “Women and Gender Issues in the Light of Social Teachings and Traditions of the Church”, still has some connection to RH, the discussions touched on many other Church issues beyond those covered by the RH Bill.
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Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which now are the most important causes of morbidity and mortality in countries like the Philippines, will be the topic of several meetings and conferences in the coming few weeks. It is hoped that these gatherings will provide the impetus for developing a detailed action plan to combat NCDs in the context of the national government’s KP or Universal Health Care program.
It is in pursuit of the KP objectives that the present government has been a strong proponent in increased tobacco and alcohol or “sin” taxes. It is not coincidental that “sin” taxes will constitute a major source of funding for the DOH program.
The series of technical meetings on NCDs was kicked off yesterday by a roundtable discussion on the epidemic of cancer, heart and vascular diseases, diabetes and the other “life-style related” diseases. Participants at the roundtable were public and private medical specialists, public health experts, as well as administrators of institutions and programs in both government and private sectors. The meeting at the Mandarin Hotel, supported by the well known electronics firm Philips, dealt with the entire range of possible interventions to combat NCDs – from social and environmental interventions to life-style or behavior changes, to early diagnosis and treatment at all levels of health care.
Next week, the DOH has organized a convention of advocates for the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases. This convention will feature the participation of a broad range of organizations from professional medical societies to patients’ groups and others with common interests. They will focus on discussing the various health promotion approaches to address behavioral aspects of the NCD problem.
Yet another gathering of DOH and local government entities that will discuss the implementation of the NCD prevention and control programs will follow in the first week of December.
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Yesterday at the Bay Leaf Hotel in Intramuros, the Coalition of Leprosy Advocates in the Philippines (CLAP) started a three-day organizational development workshop for its officers and board members. CLAP is a unique civil society organization composed of former leprosy patients. Its objective is to identify the causes, mechanisms, and dynamics of the phenomenon of stigmatization of leprosy patients. This will help in the increasingly difficult task of case finding resulting from the significantly reduced prevalence of the disease.
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Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, an avowed RH opponent, surprised his colleagues and the gallery at yesterday’s Senate plenary session by announcing his readiness to propose amendments to the long pending RH Bill and to put them to a vote before tackling the equally difficult Sin Tax proposal of the Administration. Although he did not finish all of his proposals, the Senate did vote on several of which some were accepted and others voted down. For advocates, the most significant vote was that on the proposal to define “when life begins” – which was voted down comfortably.
http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Opinion&title=For-the-nth-time,-pass-the-RH-bill-now!&id=61727

For the nth time, pass the RH bill now!

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Core
Benjamin E. Diokno


FAMILY PLANNING makes good business sense, both for employees and employers. The Reproductive Health (RH) bill is pro-poor, pro-women, and pro-growth. If I were to prepare a national budget for 65, instead of 95, million Filipinos, I would have a budget surplus rather than a budget deficit, with a larger share of the budget going to public capital formation, which the economy needs for stronger and sustained growth, rather than public consumption.
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If President Aquino were truly for the RH bill, why isn’t he pushing for it hard enough? If he can only show the same passion and doggone determination that he displayed when he had the Chief Justice removed from office, then the RH bill should have been approved by Congress a long time ago.

The RH bill could be a game changer. It has the potential of improving significantly the Philippine economic landscape.

On the other hand, the failure to pass the RH bill is economically and socially costly. It means deepening poverty of many Filipinos. Failure to pass it means more serious unemployment and underemployment. Failure to pass it means more public funds will go to social overhead (education, health care, and cash grants) and less for public capital formation.

Close to two million Filipinos are born every year. That’s horrible, considering that significantly more children are born from poor families than rich ones. This creates a cycle of deepening poverty. Tip-toeing around the high population growth issue, debating about things that don’t matter much in the overall scheme of things, is like rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

Two million people is more than the population of small countries. Those who refuse to recognize the dark clouds in the horizon, insist that high population is good; for them, higher population means bigger market and higher growth. What they don’t see is the down side -- an increasing uneducated, sickly and jobless army which could mean years of personal suffering and social tension.

NO BRAINER
Who should be responsible for family planning -- the national government or local government units (LGUs)?

That’s a no brainer -- the national government. Here’s why. For the family planning program to succeed, it has to be sustained. There are 80 provinces, 143 cities, and 1,491 municipalities. A city or province that is successful in its family planning program would attract a lot of people, through the mechanism called "voting-with-the-feet." But that would put a strain on local finances which would make the program unsustainable. Hence, it is the responsibility of the national government to implement a serious, sustainable, and well-funded family planning program.

For large firms, studies show that the benefits of family planning and maternal and child care programs sponsored by firms make sense. Benefits exceed costs. Labor productivity increases, and the welfare of families and children improve. And since the program is profitable, there is no need for fiscal incentives.

As a nation, the Philippines has been under-investing in public infrastructure. Given past neglect, the state of Philippine infrastructure has always been cited by foreign investors as one of the biggest turn-off. The Ninoy Aquino international airport has been dubbed as the worst airport in the word. The nation’s premier highway EDSA is crumbling.

In order to catch up with its ASEAN-5 neighbors, the Philippines has to allocate -- and complete -- about 5% of its gross domestic product (GDP) for public infrastructure. That’s much less than what China and its other Asian neighbors spend for public infrastructure.

Yet, public infrastructure spending in recent years had been dismal. It was 1.49% of GDP in 2006, 1.92% in 2007, 1.90% in 2008, 2.24% in 2009, and 1.83% in 2010. In 2011, Mr. Aquino’s first full year in office, it edged down further to a record low of 1.49%.

With spending for public infrastructure so low and falling, I don’t see how the Philippine economy can grow at 7% to 8% on a sustained basis in the next decade.

I know that the government’s failure to invest in "hard infrastructure" projects which would increase the capacity of the economy transcend lack of resources. But precisely, scarce budget resources may be freed up for public infrastructure if only the government has to spend less for education, and health and conditional cash transfers.

I know that in addition to poor budget prioritization, there is a problem with poor "absorptive capacity" (a.k.a. incompetence). I know that public-private partnership (PPP) initiatives have not moved because of deeper and more complicated problems (constitutional provisions which discourages foreign investment, lack of credibility, policy inconsistency, and failure to honor contracts).

The opportunity for catching up is now, while Europe and the US are busy addressing their own internal economic woes and political uncertainty. With the cost of borrowing historically low, financing should not be a problem. The economy is awash with dollars and pesos.

So, why are things moving forward ever so slowly? Sometimes, they’re stagnating (for example, the RH and Freedom of Information bills) or, worse, even backsliding (for example, the expanded Negative List and the "new" mining policy).


Benjamin Diokno is former Secretary of Budget and Management. He is Professor of Economics at the UP School of Economics.

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