Be there or be a rectangular thing

You shall not bear false witness

Magmimisa yung mga anti-RH advocate, dahil banal sila, kaya ok lang magsinungaling.

"The anti-RH advocates tried to bully their way into the camp by setting up tents at the gate for a thanksgiving mass they were planning. When the SB Park officer asked who owned the tents, anti-RH advocates lied and said they didn’t know. The SB park officer was later surprised to see that an anti-RH mass was already set up inside the tents.

When asked about whether they had a permit to do the thanksgiving mass, anti-RH advocates, led by Rizalito David, said that they did have a permit. It was later found out that all they had was an endorsement letter, revealing that the anti-RH advocates lied once again."

Pass the RH Bill

Aprub

Pass the RH Bill

RH Bill - Join the Petition! from Jullian Ablaza on Vimeo.

Video created by Jullian Ablaza and a team of talented motion graphic designers

Foreign Intervention

Nung debate sa RH bill galit na galit si Sen. Sotto dahil ang gumawa daw ng survey sa maternal mortality ay USAID at World Health Organization.  Madami rin ang nagsasabi na ang ideya sa RH bill ay galing sa mga amerikano.  Isa sa kanilang dahilan kung bakit di dapat ipasa ang RH bill ay dahil dito sa pakikialam na ito ng mga hindi Pilipino.

Ang di ko maintindihan bakit pag ibang hindi Pilipino ang nakikialam, tikom ang kanilang bibig?  Ayon sa Inquirer, mariing iginiit ng Vatican na maging neutral ang simbahan katoliko tungkol kay dating Presidente Arroyo.  Alam naman natin ngayon na ang posisyon ng Vatican ay parehas ng posisyon ng CBCP,  masasabi ba ng CBCP na ang kanilang posisiyon ay hindi galing sa mga hindi Pilipino?

Ipokrito talaga sila.

Tito Sotto is a twit

 

http://twitter.com/#!/risahontiveros/status/105632096898383872

Video for those who want to watch, via Filipino Freethinkers (starts at 7:40 mark)

Muddled Thinking

Nasa topic na rin lang ako ng RH bill, to ang isang istorya tungkol kay dating Senador Tatad kung saan pinapakita niya ang malabong pag-iisip ng mga tumututol sa RH Bill.  Ayon sa kanya, labag sa saligang batasa ang RH bill dahil

"Section 12 of Article II of the Philippine Constitution which says that the State "shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception."

Based on this, he said that it is the duty of the State to protect the life of the unborn child from conception and that this shall be contradicted by a state-run program of contraception."

pero ano ba ibig sabihin ng contraception?   Ang contraception ay

"The deliberate use of artificial methods or other techniques to prevent pregnancy as a consequence of sexual intercourse

it ay paggamit ng iba't ibang uri ng teknik para hindi mabuntis ang babae sa pagtatalik.  Ibig sabihin, hinaharang ng contraception ang conception.  Kung walang conception, walang kailangan i-protect.

Tapos, labag daw sa saligang batas ang RH bill dahil

Tatad likewise said the RH bill violates the constitutional right of couples to conduct family planning in accordance with their religious convictions.

"The bill does not only attack that belief, it also seeks to further penalize those who hold such belief by making them pay with their tax money for the program that assaults their belief. This is tantamount to religious persecution, possible only in a totalitarian state," he said in his letter.

nilalabag daw nito ang karapatan ng isang mag-asawa na mag family planning ayon sa kanilang konsensiya.  Ano ba sinasabi ng Senate Bill 2865.

Section 3:  Guiding Principles

(a) The right to make free and informed decisions, which is central to the exercise of any right, shall not be subjected to any form of coercion and must be fully guaranteed by the State, like the right itself .

(b) Respect for, protection and fulfillment of, reproductive health and rights seek to promote the rights and welfare of every person.

(j)Each family shall have the right to determine its ideal family size; Provided however, That the State shall equip each parent with the necessary information on all aspects of family life, including reproductive health, in order to make that determination.

Pinopretektahan pa nga ng bill na ito ang karapatan ng lahat ng Pilipino na magdesisyon ayon sa kanilang konsensiya dahil sa karapatan nila ito at di puedeng pakilaman ng estado ang karapatan ng bawat Pilipino.

Sa pangalawa naman niyang punot na, na nakakawawa ang mga tutol sa batas na ito dahil kasama sa  pondong agagamitin sa pagpapatupad ng batas ang mga buwis ng mga tutol sa batas.  Pero hindi lamang ito ang batas na may mga tumutol.  Madaming tutol sa pagtaas ng VAT mula 10% patungong 12%.  At ang buwis nila ay kasama sa pagpondo sa BIR na kumukubra sa pinataas na buwis.  Kung susundan natin ang lohika ni Sen. Tatad,  wala ng magbabayad ng buwis sa bansa dahil lahat naman tayo ay may tinututulang batas na ayaw nating mapatupad.

Nagkukunwari pa ang mga tutol sa RH bill na may lohika ang kanilang pagtutuol sa panukalang batas na ito samantalang alam naman ng lahat ng relihiyon ang totoong dahilan ng kanilang pagtutol.  At ang pangrelihiyong patutol aywalang lohika, walang rason at makikita mo ito sa pagbali-baliktad nila ng lohika para lang mabigyang kunwari ng hindi pangrelihiyong dahilan ang pagtutol nila.

Disinformation by RH bill opponents

May editorial ang Cebu Daily News laban sa pagkampanya ng National Youth Commission para sa RH bill.  Ok lang naman, karapatan nila magmukhang gago na walang pakialam kung mamatay na ang kababaihan sa panganganak, kung gusto nila.  Kaya lang, maliban sa pagiging mukhang gago, nalaman tuloy natin na bobo pa sila.  Kabilang sa kanilang argument laban sa RH bill ay isang pag-aaral daw na angsasabi na nakakalusot ang HIV virus sa condom

"In  1993, a United States Naval Research study established that the HIV virus, about 0.1 microns in size (a micron is a millionth of a meter), can pass through condoms which have holes or “inherent defects… between five and 70 microns.”"

1993 pa yung pag-aaral,  kung totoo itong pag-aaral na ito, sana binago na ng World Healt Organization o ng Centers for Disease Control ang kanilang rekomendasyon sa paggamit ng condom.  Tingnan natin,  ayon sa WHO

""An extensive review was conducted by a panel convened by National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in June 2000 in the United States of America, with the participation of WHO. The review concluded that condoms, when used correctly and consistently, are effective for preventing HIV infection in women and men and gonorrhoea in men".

 Ayon sa CDC

"Latex condoms, when used consistently and correctly, are highly effective in preventing the sexual transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. In addition, consistent and correct use of latex condoms reduces the risk of other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including diseases transmitted by genital secretions, and to a lesser degree, genital ulcer diseases. Condom use may reduce the risk for genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and HPV-associated diseases, e.g., genital warts and cervical cancer."

At yung pag-aaral na sinasabi nila?  Hindi siya pag-aaral sa condom, kundi sa gloves.

Your clip is a 1992 letter to the editor from Mike Roland, editor of Rubber Chemistry and Technology, a publication of the American Chemical Society. Roland argued that "the rubber comprising latex condoms has intrinsic voids [pores] about 5 microns (0.00002 inches) in size. Since this is roughly 10 times smaller than sperm, the latter are effectively blocked.... Contrarily, the AIDS virus is only 0.1 micron (4 millionths of an inch) in size. Since this is a factor of 50 smaller than the voids inherent in rubber, the virus can readily pass through."

This sounds scary, but there are a couple problems with it. First, Roland bases his statement about a 5 micron latex pore size on a study of rubber gloves, not condoms. The U.S. Public Health Service says that condoms are manufactured to higher standards than gloves. Condoms are dipped in the latex twice, gloves only once. If just 4 out of 1,000 condoms fail the leak test, the whole batch is rejected; the standard for gloves is 40 out of 1,000. A study of latex condoms by the National Institutes of Health using an electron microscope found no holes at a magnification of 2000.

 So ayon sa WHO at CDC ng Amerika, mabisa ang condom para pigilin ang paglaganap ng HIV ngayong 2011.  Bakit ngayong nagpapalaganap ng maling kaalaman?  Kasi alam nila na walang kuwenta ang mga argumento nila laban sa RH bill kung katotohanan lang ang sasabihin nila.

Catholic Exceptionalism 2

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about this guy who argued that the RH bill pending in Congress is "meddling of the State in matters of faith and morals, interference of the State in affairs of the family—the domestic church", nevermind that, even if the RH bill is passed into law, all Catholic's will still be free to follow their conscience and not use any contraceptive.

But just 2 days ago a catholic bishop was asking government to stop ceremonial marriages performed by a church in Baguio. According the the Philippine Daily Inquirer

 "a Catholic prelate called on the government, on Sunday, to take action against same-sex marriages happening in the country as such matrimonies violated the law."

Nevermind that the marriages were ceremonial and not recognized by government,  nevermind that the ceremonies were performed not by catholic priests.  The bishop wants to meddle in matters of faith and morals of other people.

It seems that catholics can not bear it if their dogma is criticized but is able and willing to criticize others for their moral choices, even if that choice does not harm anybody else.

On the RH Bill

Napanood ko kasi yung harapan at naalala ko itong sinulat ko sa isang e-group na kasali ako.  Ito ay sagot sa isang statement na inilabas ng ibang UP teachers. pasensiyana wala ng edit edit pa. :)

Even if population as a whole is not a problem (which I am not conceding),  it is incontrovertible that individual families are better off with smaller number of children.  Ito ang isang study on the impact of number of children sa pag attend ng paaralan

The estimation result shows that there is negative impact of the number of children on the proportion of school-age children attending school. The average effect for the children 6 to 24 years old is a 19% decline per additional child or almost 1 in every five children. Estimates considering per capita income quintile show that for the poorest quintile the impact is a 24% decline or almost 1 in 4 while for the richest quintile this is an 16% decline or around 4 in 25 per additional child. In addition, while this impact is not significant for the elementary school-age children, these are much bigger in magnitude and much more regressive at higher school-age groupings reaching as much as 77% for the poorest quintile for the tertiary school-age group or 8 in 10 children for this age group.

Eto naman ang isang study sa impact ng mas madaming anak sa savings rate ng pamilya

"..each additional child reduces the savings rates by -0.36 for definition 1.  Table 5 shows that in the case of definition 2, the impact of additional children is not significant. While the estimates may look small in absolute value but they are not relative to the recorded average saving rates. Given the average savings rate in the sample of 0.028, this represents a reduction of about 13%. 

The best argument they have is that, population is not an obstacle to development, which means it is not a boost either,  so if individual families are better off with lesser number of children why should we not encourage that?

Their other arguments are bullshit.  Number 2 and 3 and 4 is the fallacy of false dilemma  they present it as if we cannot do the things they say, stable, secure well paid jobs and better education etc etc if we pass the RH bill.  In fact,  with less population,  our government can channel more resources per capita to the policies they advocate.

Number 5 is not even wrong,  condoms are not meant to prevent HPVs,  we have bakuna's for that.  Isipin niyo na lang kung gano kataas ang infection rate sa Thailand ng STI kung walang condom,  another fallacy by the way,  it is a non-sequitur, it does not follow that because we and Bangladeh have lower HIV infection rate, it follows that it is because we do not promote the use of condoms.  Condoms, properly used, have been proven to prevent the transmission of STDs and HIV.

As an aside,  napaka macro ng pagtingin nila,  gaya nung sa population at economic development,  maski na hindi makatulong ang condom sa pagpigil sa paglaganap ng HIV sa isang bansa,  hindi maitatanggi na makakatulong itong sa pagsalag ng HIV infection sa mga indibidwal na tao.  Bakit mo aalisin yung choice sa isang tao na piliin niyang gumamit ng condom para hindi siya mahawahan ng sakit dahil lang sa ayaw mo ng condom?

At yung pang huling punto,  eto po yung relevant statement sa WHO

"As stated in the IARC's review, the use of COCs modifies slightly the risk of cancer, increasing it in some sites (cervix, breast, liver), decreasing it in others (endometrium, ovary).....Assessments based on risk-benefit calculations are carried out by different teams withing WHO....They regularly review the safety of  COCs and assess the balance of risks and benefits of COC use and they have determined that for most healthy women, the health benefits clearly exceed the health risks."

Religious Freedom Now

The support given by the National Council of Churches of the Philippines (NCCP) and the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PCEC) to the Reproductive Health Bill (RH Bill) highlights the fact that those who oppose its passage does so because they want to impose their own religious values on the rest of us.

Let us not allow this.  Support the RH bill.

Quote from the article:

"Dr. Rommel Linatoc of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) said the organization has thrown its support for the bill, saying it would affirm quality life for families and ensure the good health of mothers.

In a forum sponsored by the pro-RH bill Philippine Legislators' Committee on Population and Development Foundation on Thursday, Linatoc described the bill as “pro-people, pro-women, and pro-humanity.” “That is why the NCCP and all its affiliate churches nationwide are supporting it,” he said.

Bishop Efraim Tendero, national director of the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PCEC), the largest network of evangelical Christians in the Philippines, said the bill’s provisions followed Christian teachings on respecting life.

"The RH bill protects the life of both the mother and the baby in her womb,” Tendero said. “Supporting the bill is pro-quality of life” he added.
PCEC is composed of 25,000 evangelical churches, 66 denominations, and 150 para-church and mission organizations.""

Rep. Kaka Bag-ao's sponsorhsip speech for RH Bill

 RH BILL (HB4244) SPONSORSHIP SPEECH

Rep. Kaka Bag-ao, AKBAYAN Partylist

Session Hall, House of Representatives
March 8, 2011

Ginoong Speaker, mga kapwa kongresista, sa mga kabaro ko at sa milyong milyong kababaihan sa buong mundo, magandang araw sa inyong lahat.

Sa mainit na debate tungkol sa RH bill, hindi ka pa nga nakakapagsimula pero agad agad ka nang ikinakahon. Pro-life ka, anti ako. Immoral ka, pro-God ako. Sila ang pro-choice, kayo anti-women. Mahirap makipagusap o makipagdebate kung lahat nagsisigawan. Yung pro-RH, evil. Yung anti, sila ang tunay na Katoliko. Sa panahon ngayon, kung merong mang may karapatan na sumigaw, sila yung mga ordinaryong Pilipino na matagal nang may posisyon na issue na ito.

Mister Speaker, majority of Filipinos are eagerly awaiting the passage of the bill. In the October 2010 Ulat ng Bayan national survey of the Pulse Asia, seven out of ten Filipinos support the enactment of the measure that we are tackling today. This support is not just in Metro Manila or in one corner of the country. It cuts across all geographic areas, whether in the urban jungles of Metro Manila or in the rural communities of Mindanao. Hindi rin ito agenda ng mga mayayaman, kundi agenda ng lahat kahit ano pa man ang katayuan nila sa buhay.

In another survey done also by Pulse Asia in 2010, Filipinos expressed their desire to have the government install a range of reproductive health programs, and not just the promotion of natural family planning methods. 87% believe that the government should fund support for contraceptives, including IUDs, condoms, ligation, and vasectomy. Only 4% said that it is not important. Klaro ang ating instructions - dapat kumikilos nuon pa man ang pamahalaan sa issue ng RH bill.

The debate is not about who’s pro-life or pro-choice. As members of the House of Representatives, as the voice of the people, the debate is about who’s willing to listen to the people and who wish to turn their back to this truth: there is a consistent and overwhelming demand for reproductive health programs and services. Pano pa at naging kinatawan tayo ng mga mamamayan kung hindi natin sila gustong pakinggan?

At the core of the bill that we hope would be passed soon is a fundamental human right - the right to choose. Gusto lang natin siguruhin na kinikilala natin at binibigyan ng kapangyarihan ang mga karapatan na kalagay sa ating Konstitusyon. The bill seeks to ensure informed choice through free and full access to adequate, relevant and correct information. In this case, a full range of family planning methods and devices. Hindi natin idinidikta kung anong serbisyo o method, kung artificial lang o natural. Instead, the bill provides for a wide range of services that are allowed by our laws. It only seeks to empower Filipino couples, so that they are aware of all the methods and they have the capacity to decide what is best for them.

HB 4244 will provide RH information and services to all who need it, and an important element of this is providing appropriate and medically correct information on sex and sexuality to young Filipinos. Binibigyan natin ng armas ang mga kabataan laban sa mga sexually transmitted infections at laban sa mga pangaabuso. It seeks to counter myths that reinforce fears and flawed beliefs about the functions of our bodies. It seeks to counter ignorance and misinformation. Sa isang pag-aaral, nakita na 80% ng mga batang babae ay walang kaalaman kahit tungkol sa kanilang menstrual cycle, at ano ang relasyon nito sa pagbubuntis. They don’t even have the basic knowledge about the safe and unsafe time to have sex.

Adolescence is a period where forging one’s identity means exploring all matters related to one’s life, especially sex and relationships. Education is especially important given the risks the youth face today because a growing number of them are engaging in risky behaviors without understanding its consequences. They are at risk and they are vulnerable because they lack access to information about their reproductive health.

It has been said repeatedly and wrongly that the bill would only promote premarital sex. Here’s the news - unmarried young Filipinos are already engaging in sexual activities. It is not because of sex that they are at risk. They are at risk because there are no programs that can help them eliminate these risks, educate them about healthy sexual behavior, and arm them with tools to prevent sexual abuse. Filipino women, most of them young, resort to abortion - 800,000 a year, according to the World Health Organization - not because they are promiscuous or immoral but  because they have no knowledge on how to plan their pregnancies.

Studies have shown that the right sexuality education for children and young people do not hasten sexual initiation but instead promotes safer sexual behaviors, and reinforces the sense of responsibility on our young people in terms of their sexual behavior. The RH bill will teach the youth to be responsible, and not the other way around.

HB 4244 will not undermine the roles of parents and families in educating their children. It will instead support parents in ensuring that their fears of what their children are learning about sex and relationships do not come from irresponsible and misguided sources - but from trained teachers who can provide correct information and responsible guidance. At the same time, this will also encourage our children our youth to be more open with their parents, to discuss such important matters with them, and communicate their problems. HB 4244 requires the DepEd, CHED, DSWD, TESDA, and DOH to provide concerned parents with adequate and relevant scientific materials on the age-appropriate topics and manner of teaching reproductive health education to their children.

Ginoong Speaker, as we celebrate today the International Women’s Day, I wish to remind this august chameber of the primary goal of this bill - the recognition of the dignity of our women, especially poor women. Ang gusto lamang ng bill na ito ay bigyan ng patas na karapatan ang mga mahihirap na babae at pamilya na mamuhay ng marangal.

Regardless of our religious or ideological persuasions, we must at least unite that families must be given a choice to plan their families according to methods that suit their faith and condition. We must at least agree to stick to the truth, scrutinize the text of the bill, without embellishments. In our disagreement on this bill we must not lose our integrity and our sense of truth. As legislators, we must not lose our commitment to uphold and defend the text and substance of our Constitution. At bilang mga kagalang galang na kinatawan, sana ay di natin makalimutan na tayo ay nandito para pakinggan ang boses ng bayan.

Maraming salamat sa inyong lahat, at mabuhay ang mga kababaihan!