The Philippines’ highest court yesterday approved a controversial birth-control law that supporters said would transform the lives of millions of poor Filipinos, in a stunning defeat for the powerful Catholic Church.
“The RH [Reproductive Health] Law is not unconstitutional,” Philippine Supreme Court spokesman Theodore Te told reporters, announcing a ruling that struck down more than a dozen petitions against the law by church groups.
The law requires government health centers to hand out free condoms and birth control pills, as well as mandating that sex education be taught in schools.
The law also requires that public health workers receive family planning training, while post-abortion medical care is also legalized.
The Catholic Church had until Tuesday led a successful campaign for more than 15 years against any form of family planning laws in the Philippines.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino III defied church pressure and signed the law into effect in December 2012, but the Supreme Court quickly suspended it after church groups filed petitions arguing it was unconstitutional.
“This monumental decision upholds the separation of church and state, and affirms the supremacy of the government in secular concerns like health and socioeconomic development,” Philippine Legislator Edcel Lagman, the principal author of the law, said immediately after the verdict. “A grateful nation salutes the majority of justices for their favorable ruling promoting reproductive health and giving impetus to sustainable human development.”
The Catholic Church, which counts more than 80 percent of the country’s 100 million population as members, had led street protests denouncing the law as “evil,” and at one point in its opposition campaign threatened Aquino with excommunication.
One of its hardline opponents and a petitioner to the court, former Philippine senator Francisco Tatad, said allowing the law to take effect could force Catholics into an open revolt.
“This means civil disobedience at the very least, actual revolt at the most extreme,” Tatad wrote in a commentary in the Manila Times yesterday. “Some of us will want to defy the power of the devil and die as martyrs, if need be, in the only cause that gives us a chance to fight for something much bigger than ourselves.”
Church leaders have helped lead two revolutions that toppled unpopular presidents in recent Philippine history, and they continue to insist they have a right to influence the parliamentary and legal branches of government.
Another example of its enduring influence is that the Philippines is the only country where divorce remains illegal.
Nevertheless, many people across the sprawling archipelago have embraced less conservative views in recent decades.
A recent survey carried by the respected Social Weather Stations polling group said about 84 percent of Filipinos agreed that the government should provide free family planning options, such as contraceptives.
It said 72 percent were “in favor” of the law.
Women’s rights groups and other supporters of the law say it will be a powerful tool in fighting poverty and cutting the birth rate of 3.54, one of the highest in the world.
More than a quarter of the population live on the equivalent of US$0.62 a day, according to the government, and experts say there is an urgent need to provide free reproductive medical services that the poor cannot otherwise afford.
More than a third of the capital’s 14 million population live in sprawling slums, according to a 2010 WHO report, and many of them do not have access to proper sanitation, let alone health centers.
According to the British medical charity Merlin, which has backed the passage of the law, 14 or 15 mothers die daily in the Philippines in complications related to child birth.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia