Dear Colleague:
Once again the Philippines, a country with a living Christian culture, is
under attack for having too many children. The population controllers are
attempting to impose a two-child policy on the relatively pro-life,
pro-family Filipinos, who now average less than three children. But
Filipinos and Americans of Filipino descent are organizing and, at the end
of this article, there is a way to help them.
Steven W. Mosher
President
PRI Weekly Briefing
15 July 2005
Vol. 7 / No. 27
Population Controllers Target One of the Last Pro-Family Christian Nations
By Joseph A. D'Agostino
The Philippines is one of the last Christian, Westernized nations where
people have enough children to assure the future of their country. Now,
the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and other population control
agencies have gathered enough fifth column support inside this nation of
islands to make a big push for the destruction of that nation. Despite
the already dramatic and continuing decline in Filipino family size, the
international population controllers and their local collaborators want to
make the collective suicide of this Third World nation an official part of
her laws and policies. The proposed two-child policy for the Philippines,
supported by President Gloria Arroyo, 50 out of 200 Filipino congressmen,
and five Filipino senators (so far), includes coercive aspects similar to
those found in many other Third World nations' population control
programs. And the bill mandating the two-child policy includes sex
education for Filipino children, even though abstinence-based efforts in
the Philippines have been remarkably effective in containing the spread of
AIDS.
The Responsible Parenthood and Population Management Act of 2005 (HB 3773)
would officially enshrine two children as the proper family size in the
Philippines, where women have 2.8 children over the course of their
lifetimes on average. The current total fertility rate of 2.8 children
per woman is a huge drop from 6 in 1970, 5 in 1980, and 4 in 1990. Even
the pro-population control United Nations Population Division projects
that the Filipino fertility rate will continue its long decline, dropping
to under 2 by 2030 (replacement rate is 2.1).
That hasn't stopped Arroyo and others from trying to get the national
government involved in telling Filipino families how many children they
should have. They claim the bill is not coercive, yet it contains a
discriminatory provision right off the bat: Children from families that
have more than two kids will be disfavored for college scholarships.
Children from families with one or two kids will be preferred. "Children
from these families shall have preference in the grant of scholarships at
the tertiary level taking into consideration the financial need and
academic aptitude of the grantees," says the bill.
"I'm trying to put together a group in the United States of
Filipino-Americans to support leaders in the Philippines organizing
grassroots efforts against this bill," said Philippines-born Eileen
Macapanas Cosby, who has founded the Filipino Family Fund for this
purpose. Cosby spoke to a group of 2,000 Filipino-Americans at the
National Shrine in Washington, D.C. and is distributing flyers about the
bill in heavily Filipino areas and parishes. In the Philippines, "the
Catholic Church is the biggest voice against this," she said.
Time is short. The bill is scheduled for a vote next month, though
impeachment proceedings against the allegedly corrupt Arroyo and other
political turmoil could easily delay the vote.
The bill mandates a "population officer" for each local district in the
Philippines, and you can be sure that such officers, especially in remote
rural areas, will employ vigorous methods to please their superiors by
hitting population control goals. That has been the experience in other
countries with such numerical goals, such as China and India. Already,
the Filipino Catholic bishops' conference has documented coercion of
Filipina women in the country's current family planning efforts, including
a case of a woman who had an IUD inserted without her knowledge.
Just this past February, in a ceremony with the Philippines' ambassador to
the UN, UNFPA promised $26 million through 2009 for Filipino population
control efforts. UNFPA's Philippines page has links to articles promoting
HB 3773. As usual, UNFPA is working hand-in-glove with domestic leaders
in a Third World country to promote its anti-population agenda.
HB 3773, a clearly anti-Catholic piece of legislation, coerces Christian
schools and health care workers. Catholic schools would be forced to
teach sex education if this bill became law, and sex education includes
information about condoms and other contraceptives. Health care workers
who refuse to perform sterilizations or dispense contraceptives-probably
including the abortifacient morning-after pill-could face six months in
jail. Pro-life Catholic doctors and nurses would be forced to violate
their consciences or be driven from their professions.
The Filipino abstinence-based approach, typified by Dr. Rene Bullecer and
his Coalition for an AIDS-Free Philippines, has kept the Philippines
relatively free of HIV infection. The adult HIV infection rate was a mere
0.1% in 2001, though the Philippines has a low condom use rate. Even
Arroyo ascribed this success to "good morality." Yet results don't
matter: The bill adopts the pro-"safe" sex approach that has failed
everywhere.
The bill, echoing the language of international bureaucrats, makes vague
statements such as, "The State likewise guarantees universal access to
safe, affordable and quality reproductive health care services, methods,
devices and relevant information thereon even as it prioritizes the needs
of women and children, among other underprivileged sectors."
"Reproductive health care services" is often interpreted to include
abortion, though this bill specifically says that it does not affect the
Philippines' anti-abortion law. But as our founder, Fr. Paul Marx, is
fond of saying, "Contraception always leads to abortion."
A letter opposing HB 3773 to congressmen from the Philippines' Alliance
for the Family Foundation Philippines (ALFI) explains: "It is also not
true that widespread use of contraceptives will reduce illegal abortions.
In every single country where contraceptives became widely available,
abortions increased. This is because women will still get pregnant
unexpectedly. When they have the mentality that a new birth is unwanted,
they turn to abortion as back-up for contraceptive failure. For instance,
54% of American women who had an abortion were using contraception when
they became pregnant; one in three women has had at least one abortion in
their lifetime. Yet the contraceptive prevalence rate in the United
States is over 90%." The contraceptive mentality, the dedication to no or
few children combined with free and easy sexual relations, leads to
abortion.
HB 3773 also promotes a feminist agenda for the Philippines. "Protection
and promotion of gender equality and women's rights are essential to the
fulfillment of reproductive health rights" is a typical passage; others
talk about equalizing the rights and responsibilities of men and women.
Does that mean men must do half the childrearing, even if they work
full-time and their wives don't? Will the government encourage mothers to
work outside the home? Will the Christian family model with the father as
head of the household become illegal, or at least disfavored, under the
law?
"There are more pro-lifers on the ground in the Philippines than
pro-choicers," said Cosby. With the help of the bishops, they stand an
excellent chance of turning back the effort to make the dictation of
family size government policy in their country.
Joseph A. D'Agostino is Vice President for Communications at PRI.
For more information about the fight in the Philippines, contact Eileen
Macapanas Cosby at the Filipino Family Fund via
EMC_FilipinoFamily@hotmail.com
or 703-314-3020 in Washington, D.C.
Contributions may be sent to:
Ricardo J. Cardinal Vidal
c/o Population Research Institute
1190 Progress Drive, Suite 2D
P.O. Box 1559
Front Royal, Va. 22630
USA
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Email: jad@pop.org
Media Contact: Joseph A. D'Agostino
(540) 622-5240, ext. 204
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