The RH Bill vs. The Church

It’s been a while. I have been caught up in a whirl of events and things, amidst all the important and not so important random things in my life. At some point, my emotions had been up and down that whenever I found some downtime, I just wanted to lie down or do some escapist activity like read mindless romantic novels or catch up with various TV series.

But hey, the world has been turning. And, issues have come and gone. Maybe, it’s time for me to get some of my thoughts out into the universe.  

So let’s talk about the RH bill. First off, I am pro the divorce bill and I am pro the RH bill. Strip off all the politics and religious brouhaha and, to me, it’s just about access to information and freedom of choice for the women of the Philippines.

In its somewhat weak form, the current proposed RH bill somehow just becomes a point of principle. The bill aims to become a means of educating Filipinos to hopefully pave the way to empower them with informed choices. 

The Church, as I’ve said time and time again, is just looking for ways to insert itself and to insist on projecting its relevance. The Church, via the CBCP, is just hanging on and refusing to let go, resorting to all these pathetic shenanigans (case in point: remember when they spoke against Lady Gaga?) at the expense of the betterment of the people.

Never mind that the people remain ignorant as long as they remain blindly obedient to the CBCP, hasn't this been the game plan ever since the colonial days?

Let me say that I am a Catholic and I will probably be one forever but I’m not mindless or blind.  

I am amazed by these illogical things that come out from these anti-RH bill people. No matter how you look at it there really is no logic in going against educating people and giving them the right to an informed choice.

All I’ve ever heard from these anti-RH people, regardless of position or station are statements with convoluted backwards logic or otherwise known as “pilosopo” reasoning.  

I remember Lito Atienza’s witless reasoning at an interview I once saw on TV, when the bill was first discussed, he spewed a bunch of ridiculous lines such as saying that since contraceptives are already in the market, then that means that freedom of choice already exist and so there is no need to pass a bill. If I remember correctly, he also kept on insisting that the RH bill is anti-life when the bill doesn’t even touch the topic of abortion.  I recall that I was so upset with him after that interview as he just kept on giving one senseless argument after another. Watching him was exasperating. 

In any other universe (or country), the bill would have passed a long time ago based on the principle alone. 

But hey, we are in a country where the Church is still allowed to desperately strong-arm its way into feigning its dying relevance at the expense of Filipina mothers, who based on statistics die at a rate of 11 per day because of childbirth.